


Questions of Proof

by Energybeing



Series: Questions [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-12 10:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11160393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Energybeing/pseuds/Energybeing
Summary: At last, Dawn has a hypothesis that begins to make sense of things. Now she just needs proof.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to ‘Questions of Family’. This story won't make much sense unless you've read that, or ‘Questions of Existence’, which is the first story in this series. 
> 
> This story begins at the start of Season 3 of Warehouse 13 and mid-season 3 of Buffy. I do not own either show, so don't sue me for using them.

“I want a brain scan.”

Calder blinked. “Why?”

Dawn paused. There was a reason that she was asking Calder in the first place. Her reasons were... fairly complicated, and not the sort of thing that she felt capable of explaining to her psychiatrist. There was a lot that she couldn’t tell Stirling. 

“I... figured something out. About my teleporter. I have an idea, a hypothesis... I think. But I need proof. Because, you know, I seem to be the only person who can actually make a teleporter, even though everyone can use them, and they do some funky stuff and I haven’t quite worked out why...” Dawn hesitated briefly. “I assume you know about that stuff?”

Calder nodded. “I do. But what exactly are you planning to find? You had scans done when you were admitted to the psychiatric hospital, and they didn’t find anything.”

“I know, I know, but a lot of stuff has happened since then. I mean, besides making a teleporter, I’ve been possessed by an artefact, I’ve died, I cured myself with a magic pen... my brain might not be the same.”

“I admit... the fact that you seem to be the only person who can make teleporters is interesting. It suggests that they aren’t artefacts – there aren’t many duplicates – and Leena seems to think that they’re purely mechanical.”

“Does she?” Dawn said in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”

“But why do you think that your brain is the explanation?” Calder continued.

“Because... because _something_ has to be. There has to be a reason, and I think it’s something to do with me.” Dawn said. She was aware that the reason she thought it was involved her secretly being a big ball of energy, and that wasn’t really something that would turn up on a scan, but it was a starting point. It might show _something_ , and something was better than being stuck in a limbo with no proof either way.

Proof was the thing. She needed proof.

“Honestly, part of the reason that I’m here is to check up on you. You died, and then you just kept going, even after the artefact involved was destroyed. That sort of thing might have lingering effects.” Calder said.

Dawn grinned. “So you’ll do it?”

“I’ll have to run it past the other Regents, but there’s no reason why not.” Calder replied, smiling slightly. “What kind of scans did you want?”

“Uh... I don’t know. What kind of scans would you run?” Dawn asked. “It’s not really my field.”

“Well, I’d start with an MRI...”

~*~

“All clear?”

Dawn jumped. She hadn’t heard Claudia come in. “What?”

“All clear? You know, medically speaking. I hear Artie called the doctor in.”

“Oh, yeah.” Dawn said, before realising that she was going to be having a couple of scans done in a few days, and she couldn’t really hide them from Claudia. “I mean, she wants to do some scans to check, but, you know, probably fine.”

“Cool.” Claudia remarked, sitting next to Dawn. “So... what was it like?”

“What? You’ve been to the doctor before. You know what it’s like.”

“Not _that_.” Claudia replied, exasperatedly. “The being dead thing.”

“Oh. That.” Dawn said.

“I mean, I asked Pete about it when he died, but he says he doesn’t really remember, but you were dead longer than he was.”

Dawn nodded. That was true. The circumstances were also remarkably different – although they had both been killed by artefacts, Pete had been electrocuted to death, whereas Dawn... Dawn hadn’t even realised that she _had_ died until someone had told her afterwards. “I... wasn’t dead, exactly. I mean, technically I was, but for me I wasn’t dead. It was like... a hallucination. My sister showed up, and the Abomination, and she killed it.”

“Really?” Claudia exclaimed. “I wonder if that’s Heaven, then.”

“What? I was still walking around. I was dead and walking around. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the usual afterlife experience.” It was an interesting thought, though.

“Well, yeah, but having your sister show up and kill, like, your literal demon sounds pretty good. I mean, vanquishing demons and having a happily ever after is kind of what Heaven is about, right?”

“I guess.” Dawn said slowly. “Why? Why’d you want to know?”

“Because you _died_. How would I not want to know?”

“Right. Makes sense.” Dawn said absently.

“Are you okay?” Claudia asked gently. “You seem kind of out of it.”

“Just thinking.” Dawn sighed. “I died. I don’t really know what to do with that. I mean, I should be freaking out, I guess, but... it didn’t feel like I died and it’s like it didn’t really happen, you know? It’s just like ‘hey, that’s a thing that happened’. I haven’t absorbed it yet.”

Of course, Dawn had a lot on her mind. She had a lot to think about, but even with all of that, she couldn’t quite make the step from knowing that she’d died to accepting it. Even though everyone had said that she’d died, that she’d had no pulse, that she hadn’t been breathing, even when her legs had buckled and everything had started going black, she hadn’t _felt_ like she was dying. She hadn’t felt anything at all.

“Right.” Claudia nodded. She didn’t really understand. She knew what it felt like, to almost die. She’d almost died on her first outing as an agent – she only reason that she was still alive was because HG had saved her. She’d almost burst into flames, and she’d certainly felt as though she was going to come apart and melt into the floor from the heat. She remembered when she’d thought that Dawn was going to die, back when she’d accidentally overdosed. She remembered all of that, sometimes at 3AM when what she really wanted to be doing was sleeping. Sometimes she even dreamt about it. She couldn’t imagine _actually_ dying and barely even seeming to notice. “Well, if you need to talk, I’m-“

As if on cue, Dawn’s phone started ringing. “It’s my sister.” Dawn said, with some surprise. She made no move to pick it up.

“So... you’re not going to answer that, then?”

“Wasn’t planning to.” Dawn replied. “We had a bit of a... falling out, I guess.”

Technically, that wasn’t true. She’d decided that seeing Buffy again wasn’t really a good idea, given that last time they’d met they’d been in a reality created by a wish, a reality in which Dawn was dead, and Buffy had come running when Dawn had called and Buffy had been killed because of that. Dawn had said that she couldn’t always be available, that she couldn’t be around that much, in case she got Buffy hurt. Besides, if any time was a good time to be unavailable, the day after your own death was one.

Claudia, judging by the nudge she gave Dawn, didn’t agree. “Yeah, but you died yesterday. Seems like a good time to make up.” 

The ringing stopped. Buffy hadn’t left a message.

“I’ll call her later.” Dawn said. “Right now I’ve got some thinking to do.” 

“Okay.” Claudia said, after a few seconds. “I’ll leave you to it.”

~*~

_What exists everywhere?_

Dawn looked at the question she’d just written on a sheet of paper stuck to her wall. After a little while, she underlined it.

It was an important question. The key, or rather the Key, to everything.

For years, she’d hallucinated being to Key, some kind of energy made human by some monks and hunted by the Abomination. She hadn’t known what the Key was, what it was for, why the Abomination wanted it or what the Abomination even was. Then, a while ago, she’d had a dream in which the monks had hid the Key, hid _here_ , saying that if the Abomination found it then the universe would end. At the time, she hadn’t thought much about it. It hadn’t been until yesterday, when she’d died and hallucinated the Abomination that she’d put it together. 

She’d already known that universes needed some kind of buffer zone so that they didn’t blend together. That was why Joshua’s pocket dimension had collapsed and why the hell dimension she and Buffy had found in LA had had a gateway. It was needed so that they the universes didn’t bleed into one another – Joshua’s hadn’t had one, and it had fallen apart because of it, gradually leaking through here and affecting things. It was why vengeance demons couldn’t simply shunt people into other dimensions, they couldn’t cross the barrier – what they could do was life the barrier between two dimensions so that they blended together to get the desire they wanted.

She’d been in the universe that the vengeance demon had created, even though there was no reason she was aware of that would explain why. The best that she had been able to think of was that she was the Key, and the Key needed to be everywhere.

Then the Abomination had said that it would use the Key to break down the barriers between the dimensions so it could get back home, destroying this universe in the process. Which meant that the Key had something to do with the barrier between dimensions. Which meant that, if she was right, she – or rather, the Key – needed to be both _in_ every dimension, and _between_ every dimension.

But what was in every dimension? Energy? That needed time, and there hadn’t been time in Joshua’s dimension. Of course it could be some kind of other energy – perhaps magic, although the scientist in her shied away from using that as an explanation – that no one knew about, something which was both non-material and non-dependent on time, but if she assumed that, how could she prove it? What could she do with the information?

If the Key was everywhere, what was the Key?

Dawn’s fruitless thoughts were interrupted by her phone ringing. Buffy was calling again. She ignored it, and continued staring at the paper in the hope that inspiration would suddenly hit.

After a little while, Dawn’s phone buzzed. Buffy had sent her a text message. Given that Dawn wasn’t getting anywhere, she thought that there wasn’t any harm at looking at a text.

_Science question_

As Dawn looked at it, trying to figure out what Buffy was saying, another message came through.

_If I died in a universe which doesn’t exist, why has another Slayer showed up?_

Before Dawn could even wrap her head around that, there was another message.

_There’s someone here you should meet._


	2. Chapter Two

Dawn was tired. She’d died yesterday, and then she’d flown from Egypt back to South Dakota, and then she’d had to talk to Artie and Calder. Dawn didn’t like travelling at the best of times, and the flight had been _really_ long. The restless tossing and turning that she’d managed to have on the plane couldn’t really be said to count as sleep - even then, there’d been very little of that.

She didn’t have the energy to go and see Buffy. She’d have to teleport to LA first and then drive over, if she wanted to avoid awkward questions, and Dawn wasn’t entirely convinced that she wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel. Even if she didn’t, she highly doubted that she’d be of much use to Buffy in the first place. She already had one puzzle to work out – one which Dawn couldn’t really imagine solving, either, not unless some information dropped in her lap. She didn’t have enough to work with. She certainly didn’t have the brain power to wrench her thoughts away from that and try to work out why there was another Slayer.

She didn’t want to speak to the other Slayer, either. She couldn’t imagine that going well. She imagined saying something to the effect of Buffy being the real Slayer, and the other Slayer getting terribly offended – or maybe the other Slayer would be someone like Cordelia, in which case there was _no_ chance that Dawn was up to meeting her.

She didn’t want to text Buffy back, either. If she did, Buffy would text back and there’d be a whole conversation, or Buffy would actually call and Dawn wouldn’t really have a reason not to pick up – and Dawn just couldn’t face either of those things. She just couldn’t. She didn’t have the energy. She didn’t really have the energy for anything – she just wanted to lie back on her bed and slide gently to sleep.

Knowing her, though, Dawn doubted that she could even do that right.

~*~

Myka was surprised when there was a knock on her door. Pete had long since retired – he’d never been able to sleep on planes, and had been pretty much asleep by the time they’d gotten back to the B&B. He’d barely been able to stagger up the stairs to his room. Neither Artie nor Leena ever knocked on her door – they’d be more likely to call for her from downstairs – and Claudia would be more likely to actually _say_ “Knock knock.” Not that Claudia was likely to come and see Myka in the first place.

Even though Myka knew all of this, she was still surprised when she looked up and saw HG standing in the doorway. “May I speak with you for a moment?”

“Of course!” Myka said, shifting into a sitting position. After a moment, HG came and sat on the edge of the bed. Myka waited for HG to speak.

HG reached up and absently touched her necklace, before seeming to realise what she was doing and actively putting her hand back down. “What are you writing?”

“Oh, just a report. I slept on the plane, so I thought I might as well start on it now.” Myka said.

It wasn’t strictly true. Myka hadn’t really slept on the plane – by rights, she should be as tired as Pete was. She just hadn’t been able to sleep. There had been too much going on, too much to think about. She didn’t feel like she had the time to sleep. Myka was fully aware that HG hadn’t slept either, and knew that Myka hadn’t.

She also wasn’t writing a report. She was writing a letter to the Regents, recommending that HG stay at the Warehouse. She felt as though she needed to do it as soon as possible, before Artie kicked her out. But Myka didn’t want to tell HG that.

HG nodded politely and pretended to believe Myka. She didn’t say anything else.

“But you didn’t come here to talk about that, did you?” Myka said, after a moment.

“No.” The corner of HG’s mouth briefly quirked into a smile, which faded as quickly as it appeared. “I wanted to ask you a question, but I’m having some... difficulty in phrasing it.”

“You can ask me anything.” Myka said quickly. “You know that.”

“Thank you.” HG paused. “I spoke with Doctor Calder. She told me that she was going to arrange for me to see someone called a ‘grief counsellor’.”

“Right.”

“The thing is, I’m not entirely certain what grief counselling is. I admit that the entire field of psychiatry is a new one to me.”

“Right.” Myka said again. “Sorry – I’m a little tired – but what exactly is your question?”

HG breathed in slowly. “I wanted to ask... you told me that you have lost someone. Sam. I was wondering – I wanted to ask what the process is like.”

Myka blinked. “Oh.”

HG stood and moved to leave. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have I asked. I’ve overstepped my-“

“Sit down.” Myka interrupted. “It’s fine. I told you that I’m here to talk, if you want. I just... didn’t really expect that.”

HG remained standing. “If you don’t want-“

“It’s fine, honestly, it’s fine.” Myka replied. “Please, sit down.”

After a moment, HG sat.

“Sam and I... um. When he died, we were partners, we worked together, and... we weren’t supposed to actually _be_ together. It’s against the regulations. I know that people knew, but, uh, _officially_ they didn’t. So when he died, there were sessions to... deal with the fact that my partner had died, but not about the fact that _Sam_ had died, if that makes sense? It was about losing someone I worked with, not someone I... not someone I loved.” Myka paused, taking in a deep breath. “I was fine. I wouldn’t, I _couldn’t_ let myself not be fine. Not at work. I needed work. So I forced myself to be fine, to get on with it, to work, because I couldn’t do anything else. When I was at home, when I wasn’t working... I couldn’t do that. So I worked all the time and buried everything.”

Myka smiled sadly, and looked at HG for the first time since she had started speaking. “I guess that’s not really much of a help, is it? I’m sorry. If you were looking for something to help you prepare or something...”

“I wasn’t looking for anything.” HG said, her face expressionless. Myka couldn’t really tell what she meant by that. HG stood. “Good night, Myka.”

“Good night.” Myka replied automatically. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. It took me a long time, and...”

“I understand.” HG said, and she did. “Good night.”

~*~

“She’s not answering.” Buffy said.

“Did you tell her that you’ve lost your powers?” Willow asked.

Buffy shook her head. “No. I thought telling her about the new Slayer would be enough – she was really interested in how the other dimension worked before.”

“I do not understand why you need to talk to your sister.” Kendra said. “You have a Watcher. If anyone knows about this, it will be the Council. They keep detailed records of everything – if anything like this has-“

“Yeah, yeah, you said that already.” Buffy interjected. “What we _need_ is to get her to talk.”

Buffy gestured to a figure tied to a chair. “I _told_ you.” Anya said tiredly. “I was a vengeance demon. I used to grant wishes. I came here to grant Cordelia’s. Except, when I was just about to actually do that, it just... didn’t happen. I had a necklace that let me do it, and it’s gone. I don’t know anything else.”

“And I told _you_ that I made a wish, your face went all veiny and then suddenly everything was hell.” Cordelia snapped. “I was told that none of that ever actually happened, but _apparently_ it did and I don’t want to deal with that.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Yes, Cordy. This _is_ all about you.”

“Well, _excuse_ me! You weren’t there – well, you were, but you died. _I’m_ the one who remembers it all.”

“I’ve never had a wish reversed before.” Anya said. “Never. I don’t know what the fall out will be. I don’t know why you’ve lost your powers or why Little Miss Uptight is here. I’ve told you that over and over again.”

Giles cleared his throat. “Cleary this is something that merits research. I highly doubt that the demon is going to be of any use to us.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Anya exclaimed.

“Yeah, well, you still aren’t going anywhere until all of this gets sorted out.”

“Indeed.” Giles said, polishing his glasses. “I’m going to try and find out what’s going on – Buffy, if your sister does call back, I’d like to speak with her. The theory that she came up with in regards to the other reality was most intriguing, I think it deserves to be pursued. I would like to hear her thoughts on this situation.”

“Sure thing.”

“Oh, and if you insist on keeping this young woman tied up, could you at least move her to a more secluded part of the library?”

~*~

Buffy was walking home when she felt something behind her. She didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything, she just _felt_ as though there was something there. Ordinarily she would have put that down to Slayer senses, but she didn’t seem to have those anymore. Even so, she whirled around, clumsily pulling out a stake.

Then she saw who was following her, and she dropped the stake through suddenly nerveless fingers. “ _Angel_?”

Angel was standing there, an enormous smile on his face. “Buffy.”

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you-“

“I heard that you were dead. Word is that there’s another Slayer, and I had to...”

He was interrupted by Buffy enveloping him in a massive hug. Tentatively, after a second or two, he hugged her back.

After a while, when Buffy felt capable of forming a coherent thought and not just standing there enjoying the fact that Angel was back, really, truly back, she said “It’s complicated. There is another Slayer, and there’s this whole other reality involved and I can’t even begin to understand what’s going on, but you’re back so that doesn’t really matter.”

“I don’t have to leave again.” Angel said gently. “I hid all the pieces of the Judge. No one will find them, no one.”

“Really?” Buffy said, looking up at him.

“Really.”

And then he kissed her.


	3. Chapter Three

Dawn wasn’t good at sleeping. It just wasn’t something that she did. It didn’t matter if she was manic, depressed or neither – she just didn’t sleep much.

So it took her entirely by surprise when she woke up to find that it was past noon. She’d slept through the entire night and the whole morning. She hadn’t woken up after about an hour and then completely failed to get back to sleep, which was what normally happened. She hadn’t been woken up by some kind of crisis – even Pete the ferret hadn’t managed to wake her up, even though he was curled up on the bottom of her bed.

She felt rested, too, which was a feeling that she had almost forgotten about. Normally there was just so much going on that she didn’t have time to rest, even if she had been capable of it. She couldn’t remember sleeping this late since... well, probably since she’d been cured by Poe’s quill.

Dawn took her time getting ready. She figured that it would still be a day or so before anything happened with Calder, and even though there seemed to be another Slayer in Sunnydale that wasn’t something that Dawn needed to attend to right away. Especially not given that she didn’t know why there was another one in the first place. She could relax, take a break –

Or she could walk downstairs and see a strange man sitting at the dining room table. He had his back to her, and he didn’t seem to have heard Dawn come down the stairs. He had close-cropped hair, and seemed somewhat ill at ease.

Dawn was just about to go back upstairs and try and contact someone by Farnsworth, so that they could deal with the intruder, when Leena came into the room and saw her. Unlike the man, Leena seemed perfectly comfortable. “Dawn! You’re awake! This is-“

The man stood up, and walked towards Dawn. “Jinks.” He held out his hand for her to shake.

Dawn made no move to take it. “No thanks.” She looked at Leena quizzically. 

“This is Agent Steve Jinks.” Leena said gently. “His _name_ is Jinks. With a K. he’s going to be working at the Warehouse now.”

“Right.” Dawn nodded. “Uh... why?”

“While HG is...” Leena paused, looking for the right word.

Dawn spoke before she could find it. “Oh. _Oh_. You’re replacing HG.”

Jinks looked at Leena, who didn’t respond. “Uh, yeah. I suppose so. I mean, I’m not really sure.”

“How come you got here so quickly?” Dawn asked. “Is there, like, a roster of back up agents in case someone... can’t go out in the field?”

“I met Artie and Claudia in the field this morning.” Jinks replied. “So, no, probably not. Unless you regularly stage encounters with, um, _artefacts_ as some kind of interview or something.”

“This morning?”

“Yeah.”

Dawn nodded. “Right.” She went back upstairs.

~*~

What Dawn wanted to do was speak to Claudia, but she didn’t seem to be around. Failing that, she would have quite liked to have gone back into her room, but she suspected that it would only be a matter of time before Leena came up after her, and if she wasn’t talking to someone then she’d have to speak to Leena. Ordinarily, that would be fine, but she was fairly certain that Leena would calmly explain to her why she should go downstairs and speak to Jinks, and she didn’t really think she could face that right then. Not without some preparation, at least – she didn’t know what he knew, about the Warehouse or HG or even about herself. She didn’t really want to have the endless wonder conversation with someone who had only discovered it that very same morning.

But Claudia wasn’t there. Neither was Myka, or Pete, or Artie. She assumed that they were all at the Warehouse, probably in order to be briefed about Jinks or whatever it was that actual agents did in situations like this.

HG, however, was in her room. At least, Dawn was fairly sure that she was. Her door was closed, and Dawn couldn’t hear her in there, but she doubted that Artie would want HG to be around him right then, and besides, as far as Dawn knew, there was nowhere else that HG would be.

Even so, she hesitated before knocking on the door.

The response was slow in coming – after a while, Dawn began to think that she was wrong, and HG wasn’t there at all. “Come in, Dawn.”

Dawn went in. “How did you know it was me?”

HG was lying on her bed, knees bent with a book resting on them. “I can hear Leena and Agent Jinks talking downstairs, and no one else is here at the moment.”

“So, you’ve met him then. The new guy, I mean.”

HG inclined her head slightly. “Briefly. He was introduced to us while you were sleeping. Shortly after that, Agent Nielsen whisked the others away to the Warehouse to talk to them about something, and Leena began to explain exactly what the Warehouse is. I understand that Mrs Frederic wasn’t exactly forthcoming when she decided to bring Agent Jinks on board.” HG said. Her voice was carefully neutral.

“Do you know how he... I mean, he said he met Artie and Claudia this morning, do you-“

“I am afraid I don’t know the particulars of his encounter with Claudia and Agent Nielsen.” HG smiled briefly. “I understand that a guitar figured in some way, but Claudia was rather... excitable and didn’t seem to be particularly coherent.”

“Yeah, she does that sometimes.” Dawn smiled. “So, did you speak to him?”

HG shook her head. “Not particularly.” Truthfully, she’d got the impression that she wasn’t particularly wanted, at least not by Leena or Artie. Jinks had seemed too confused by the fact that she was both HG Wells and still alive to really react. “He seemed rather overwhelmed.” 

“Right.” Dawn nodded. HG couldn’t help but think that Dawn seemed a little overwhelmed herself. “What are you reading?”

HG held up her book. It was an account of all the major discoveries in physics over the last century, written in German.

“Oh, cool!” Dawn exclaimed. “How is it?”

“Interesting.” HG replied. She remembered when she’d first arrived at the Warehouse, and Dawn had decided to bring the microwave into her room in the middle of the night and try to explain how it worked. She hadn’t been very good at it – she had taken it for granted that HG knew things that hadn’t even been discovered back in her century. Since then, Claudia had made some progress teaching HG about the more technological developments of the past few years, but that was more on the practical side than the theoretical. “It provides a good framework for understanding things.”

Dawn nodded, but before she could say anything HG spoke. “Dawn, can I – don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you here?”

“Where?” Dawn frowned. “At the Warehouse? Didn’t we talk about that already?”

“No, I mean _here_ , in my room.”

“I... don’t understand.”

“You seem somewhat perturbed about the fact that there’s a new member agent here, which is understandable given his sudden appearance. Even if you don’t want to engage with him – although he does seem quite personable – you have a teleporter in your room. You don’t have to engage with anyone if you don’t want to.” HG said. “So, that being the case, why have you decided to come and see me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You saved Claudia’s life. You came back and helped me in Egypt, even though you didn’t have to, even though your plan was all about _not_ helping people. Plus there’s the fact that there’s a strange man downstairs who seems like he’s supposed to replace you, which, you know, I’m not really that keen on because you’re just about to start therapy and stuff and if they replace you for that then-“ Dawn stopped and paused for breath. “You’re kind of scary. More than kind of. But you’ve been through things that... that people shouldn’t have to go through, and I understand that, I do. So there isn’t really a reason for me not to come and see you.”

“I see.” HG said. “This is a show of solidarity.”

“Yes. Sure. Something like that.” Dawn paused. “Really it’s just because I was taken by surprise by someone new being downstairs and I wanted to talk to someone about it and you’re the only person here, but... yeah, sure, there’s no reason for me not to speak to you, you know?”

“I see.” HG said again. “Incidentally, Calder left a message for you earlier. I forgot to mention it in all the excitement – she’s arranged for you to have some scans at a hospital in Sioux Falls this afternoon.”

“Really? That was fast. Where exactly?”

“I’m not sure. I think Leena has the information.”

~*~

As it turned out, having the scans took longer than Dawn had expected. She’d had a CT scan before, back at the psychiatric hospital in LA, which had taken a few minutes, but these took a while longer. Calder explained to her that she was having an MRI scan, because it was likely to see if there was any organic defects like a tumour or a lesion, which it would show more clearly than a CT scan. She also explained that she’d be having an fMRI scan to show her brain activity in response to certain questions and other stimuli. All in all, it took several hours. Calder said that she’d probably get the results within a day, two at the most. She wasn’t a radiologist, so she had to get a consult from one of her colleagues.

~*~

Calder gave Dawn a lift back to the B&B, and by the time she got there it was pretty much evening. She couldn’t see anyone inside, but she supposed that didn’t really mean anything. It wasn’t particularly unusual for people to be working late at the Warehouse – if Dawn knew Artie, she could be fairly sure that he had Jinks there cataloguing artefacts so that he could get a feel for how they worked. Whatever else Artie might be, he wasn’t the type to rush people into the field.

When she went upstairs, she could hear Pete watching TV in his room, and she was fairly sure that Myka was talking to HG in her room – she got the distinct impression that the reason that she could hear Pete at all was because he was trying to give the two women some privacy, which wasn’t always easy in the B&B. But Dawn didn’t really pay much attention to any of that, because Claudia was sitting in a chair outside of Dawn’s room. When she heard Dawn, the younger woman looked up and smiled. “Hey. How’d everything go?”

Dawn shrugged. “Not sure yet. Calder says it’ll be a day or two before I get the results back, but she didn’t see anything that shouldn’t be there. At least, I _think_ she didn’t. And you? How are you doing? I hear you went on a mission this morning.”

Claudia smile widened. “I did. You should have seen it, Dawnie, there was lightning everywhere and Hendrix’s guitar and – it was amazing.”

“Sounds cool.” Dawn said. “Do you want to come in and tell me all about it?”

Claudia paused for a moment, and then shook her head. “I’ll tell you in the morning. Artie’s having me write a report – although I don’t know _why_ , given that he was there too and he was the one that did all the stuff, but that’ll probably help me get everything straight in my head so I don’t just babble about how cool it was.”

“Right. I’m glad that it was cool and, you know, that you’re okay.”

“Yeah, um, that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Leena said that you seemed...” Claudia trailed off as she searched for the right word. “Standoffish, I think she said. Or something like that. Standoffish around the new guy. I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

Dawn shrugged again. “I’m not that great with change, you know? I mean, Stirling and I came up with this routine for me, so that I can... you know, and I know that dying and all isn’t really routine – but then coming back and seeing this new guy in the dining room kind of took me by surprise. I’m sure he’s a nice guy and all, it’s just the fact that he was _suddenly_ there.”

“Uh huh. I know what you mean – he helped out this morning, with the guitar and all, and then next thing you know here he is, and Mrs Frederic’s offered him a job. Kind of fast moving.” Claudia nodded. “Did – have you heard about the whole lying thing?”

Dawn tilted her head, and tried to frantically think if she’d lied about anything recently. Short of bronzing the Judge’s arm and her flimsy excuse for stealing the Honjo Masamune, she couldn’t think of anything. She also couldn’t think why Claudia was being so conversational about it, if she’d figured out either of those things. Claudia could, she supposed, be talking about someone else – but the only person she could imagine who that might be was HG, and Dawn couldn’t really imagine that there were more lies coming in from that front. “What lying thing?”

“Jinx can tell if you lie. You know, like Pete gets vibes about things? Well, if someone lies, apparently Jinks gets this feeling and can tell.”

Dawn hoped that her face wasn’t suddenly covered by an expression of dread. Having a human lie detector around really wasn’t something that she felt comfortable with. “How does that work?”

Claudia shrugged. “I’m not really sure – he _said_ that he hasn’t really tested it, but I don’t really know why you wouldn’t. I mean, if I could do something like that, I’d like to know how far it went.”

Dawn could understand why someone wouldn’t want to test it. If you could tell if someone was lying, why would you go to extreme lengths to figure out exactly what kinds of lies you could determine, or how to get around it? It would be better, Dawn thought, if you just let it be known that you could tell if someone was lying and leave it at that – that way people would be more inclined to be truthful, rather than constantly searching for loopholes.

Of course, Dawn _was_ going to be searching for loopholes, but that was beside the point.

Not that Dawn mentioned any of that. Instead, she said “Right, that makes sense”. She wondered if that was a lie of omission, and if Jinks would be able to tell if it was. 

Claudia stood. “Anyway, I just wanted to check that you were okay. Good night.”

“Good night.” Dawn replied.

She went inside and pulled out her phone. She texted Buffy to tell her that she was going to be in Sunnydale in the morning, and then she collapsed on her bed and began thinking about all the possible ways to beat a human lie detector.


	4. Chapter Four

Dawn got to Sunnydale fairly early. Even with the drive from LA to Sunnydale, South Dakota was still a couple of hours behind and she’d teleported from there pretty early in the morning. Still, she was fairly sure that Buffy would be up. Her sister slept about as much as she did.

Even so, Dawn was surprised that it was Joyce who opened the door. Her mother looked surprised to see her, which was strange given that Dawn had told Buffy that she was coming last night. She also seemed a little embarrassed, Dawn thought, although she couldn’t possibly imagine why. She supposed that she was probably reading her wrong. “Dawn!”

“Hi, Mom.” Dawn said, surreptitiously checking her watch. It was still on Univille-time, but it showed that it was still early enough in the morning that Joyce should probably still be asleep. Certainly, she shouldn’t be fully dressed and looking like she was ready to go to work. “Is Buffy around?”

Joyce shook her head, and Dawn was _sure_ she saw her flush slightly. “She hasn’t been here for a couple of days.”

Dawn frowned. That didn’t make sense. Buffy had called her and texted her the night before last, and she’d replied to Dawn’s text telling her that she’d be in Sunnydale this morning. Admittedly, all she had said was ‘ _Cool_ ’, but that wasn’t really unusual. “Is she okay? Have you heard-“

Joyce shook her head. “Oh, it’s nothing like that. She’s fine, she’s just... keeping away.”

“You seem surprisingly okay with that.” Dawn said slowly. “Is there something I’m missing here?”

Joyce tilted her head slightly. “She didn’t tell you?”

“That there was another Slayer? Sure. That’s why I’m here.”

“I don’t mean Kendra.” Joyce paused, seemingly looking for the right words. “There was a... an incident, a few days ago. A demon was influencing people. The town.” Joyce paused again. “Me.”

Dawn nodded, pretending that she understood. “Right.”

“It, um, sort of turned everyone against the supernatural. Turned people into a kind of lynch mob.” Joyce said, and she was _definitely_ embarrassed now. “Which I led. And we, uh, kind of tied Buffy to a stake and tried to burn her.”

Dawn burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. The idea of her mother, the woman standing awkwardly in her doorway with a bright red face, leading a lynch mob that tried to burn her sister was too incongruous an idea for her _not_ to laugh. Joyce smiled slightly too, although it was clear that she didn’t really see the funny side of the situation. “I’m sorry.” Dawn said, after a few moments. “I shouldn’t laugh. Trying to burn people isn’t funny.”

“Anyway, Buffy said that everything was fine, that she understood that some... demonic mojo, I think she said, was affecting me and that everything was good between us, but... she still hasn’t been here for the last couple of nights.” Joyce shrugged awkwardly. “I can’t say I blame her, really.”

“It’s not your fault. You do know that, right? If some demon hijacks the town, you can’t really blame yourself for that.”

“I almost burned my daughter alive, Dawn.” Joyce said baldly. “If Kendra hadn’t shown up, I would have.”

Dawn nodded slowly. She understood what it was like to feel guilty about things that weren’t really your fault. She remembered when Pete had been recovering from using the telegram that had messed with his head. He hadn’t had time to do anything more than lie, but he’d still felt guilty about that. “I’m pretty sure that I’m not the right person to try and convince you that you didn’t do anything wrong.” She could see that Joyce was about to protest, but she kept going before she had the chance. “But you didn’t. You live in a town full of demons and vampires and witches, and at some point one of them is going to get to you and you’re going to end up doing something that isn’t... you know, _you_. But, see, the thing is, it _wasn’t_ you. It was a demon, who happened to be using you.”

Joyce waved a hand absently. “I know that. Buffy said that, Giles said that... but still. I can’t help but feel like-“

Dawn wrapped her in a hug before she could finish. After a moment, Joyce returned it.

~*~

Buffy looked tense. She was pacing up and down, looking steadfastly at the floor, and her jaw was clenched. The last time Dawn had seen her looking that tense, a prophecy had predicted Buffy’s death.

Buffy looked up when she heard Dawn come in, but even though she smiled and some of the tension left her face, she still wasn’t relaxed. Not even close. “Hey, Dawnie.”

“Hi.” Dawn said, looking around the library. Besides Giles, who was reading a thick book and didn’t seem to have noticed that she had come in, there was no one else there. Not even Kendra, the other Slayer. “You okay?”

Buffy nodded.

“’cause, you know, you don’t _look_ okay.”

Buffy shrugged. “Oh, you know, I’ve lost my powers and there’s a new Slayer on the block, and we’ve got someone who used to be a demon locked up and she isn’t saying anything, and... yeah. You know, not exactly having a good time right now.”

“You lost your powers? Right. You lost your powers.” Dawn nodded. That made sense. If there was only supposed to be one Slayer at a time, and Buffy had lost her powers and a demon who had created a reality in which Buffy had died was involved, that certainly would explain why someone might feel tense. “I don’t really have an explanation. I mean, I can talk to the demon if you want, see what they say...” Dawn trailed off. She didn’t really want to speak to a demon, even if the demon was now human. The closest she had ever come to even _seeing_ a demon had been the dismembered remains of the Judge, and he hadn’t really been capable of speech. She didn’t want to speak to a demon.

Buffy shook her head. “She isn’t talking. Says she doesn’t know anything. Giles is looking for-“

“Hmm?” Giles looked up after hearing his name. “Oh. Good morning, Dawn.”

“Hey, Giles. Found anything interesting?” Dawn said.

“Oh, yes. Sadly, most of it is contradictory, hearsay, or irrelevant.” Giles sighed. “It appears that vengeance demons are rather difficult to get a hold of. Besides being able to rapidly recover from most forms of physical damage, they can also teleport out of danger should the situation be too much to handle. That, at least, is certain. However, I don’t know how their abilities work – the ability to grant wishes is powerful magic. Anya mentioned that she had a necklace that allowed her to do it, but I can’t find any mention of such things _at all_.”

“Hold on a second – did you say she can teleport?” Dawn said. It hadn’t even occurred to her that there might be demons that could teleport. For a second, she was excited – she could ask the demon how it worked, see if it tallied with what she knew about her own teleporter – but then she realised that, even if the demon did say something (which didn’t seem likely, given what Buffy and Giles were saying), then she couldn’t trust what it said. It was a demon, after all. Or an ex-demon.

“I did, yes.” Giles replied. “Sadly, that’s more or less the extent of the information I’ve found on them. Do you want to speak to her? You had some ideas about the alternate universe, you might be able to figure something out. If she talks.”

Dawn didn’t want to speak to her. She wanted Buffy to go back to being the Slayer, for Kendra to stop being the Slayer, and for everything to go back to normal. But she didn’t say any of that. “Sure.”

~*~

The demon didn’t look like Dawn had expected her to. For one thing, Anya was younger than she had thought she would be – she looked younger than Dawn did herself. She also looked a lot more human than she would have thought. Of course, Dawn knew that Anya _wasn’t_ a demon, at least not anymore, but she still couldn’t help but think that she should look like one.

She also looked bored. Dawn hadn’t really expected any particular expression, but when she actually looked at Anya, stuck in the book cage, she was surprised she didn’t look angry, or menacing. In short, she thought that she should look demonic. “Who’re you?”

Dawn ignored the question, although she was kind of surprised that the demon had asked it. She _had_ created another reality in which Dawn was dead, so it seemed a little strange that she didn’t even know who Dawn was. “I hear you can teleport. How does that work?”

“If I answer, will you let me go?”

Dawn looked at Buffy, who shrugged. “It’s not really up to me.”

“Then there isn’t really any reason for me to answer, is there? I want something, you want something, we can trade. It’s a basic transaction.”

“Would you tell me if I said I’d let you go?”

Anya looked at her for a long moment. “Why’d you want to know, anyway? It has nothing to do with wishes.”

“I didn’t really think it did.” Dawn said. “I just want to know. Besides, if you share _something_ then we might be more inclined to let you go.”

Anya shrugged. “I have a maths test today. I was going to flunk anyway, but I thought being locked in here by the librarian might be a good excuse.”

Dawn frowned. “A maths test?”

“Uh, she’s a student. Or she pretended to be a student to get close to Cordy, so that she could get her to make a wish, and now she’s stuck.” Buffy explained.

“It’s a matter of keeping your enemies close.” A voice said from just behind them. Dawn, to her credit, flinched only slightly – she was more used to that sort of thing that she would like – but Buffy jumped nearly a foot in the air.

“Jeez, Ms Calendar!” Buffy exclaimed. “If you could not with the sneaking, that would be great.”

“Sorry.” Jenny said absently. “Is Rupert around?”

“Giles?” Buffy said. “Sure. He was here a second ago, he’s probably back in the stacks somewhere.”

“Thank you.” Jenny replied, and left.

“Right.” Dawn said, after a couple of seconds. “So, Buff, you didn’t think that kidnapping a student and locking them up might be a bad idea?”

“She’s a demon!”

“Was a demon.” Anya corrected crossly.

“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, this is Sunnydale, it’s not like anyone is going to care. Or notice.”

“Still.”

“I’d rather be let out, if it’s all the same to you.” Anya interjected.

“Shut up.” Buffy snapped, before turning back to Dawn. “She’s a bad guy, Dawnie. And you didn’t care that she was locked up until you found out that she was a student.”

“The only reason I knew she was here at _all_ is because Mom told me! Speaking of, if you could go back home and talk to her that would be great. She’s feeling a little... bad about the whole fire thing.”

“What?”

“You’ve been avoiding her, and-“

“It’s got nothing to do with the fire! I have things to deal with, and-“

“Then _tell_ her! She knows about the supernatural now, there’s no reason to keep her in the dark. If you’re worried about not being the Slayer anymore, then talk to her. She thinks you... I don’t know, but she’s worried.”

“Don’t talk to me about telling people things! You’re the person who vanishes when we try to get close to you. It took you more than a day just to reply to a message!”

“Well, I’m _sorry_ that I can’t stay glued to my phone. You aren’t the only thing in my life, you know. I’m not twenty anymore, I have work and other people to deal with.”

“You’re still here though. You said that you wouldn’t be, but you’re still here, just dropping in. It’s early, Dawn, but you’re here. You’re not at work doing... whatever it is you do. What is that, by the way? How is that you can just drop-“

“Do you know what I did yesterday, Buffy?” Dawn interrupted, her voice quiet. She glanced briefly at Anya, who was watching the whole thing with an amused look on her face. “The place I work is having us all do medical tests, to see how fit we are. And I, being me, had to spend _hours_ in a machine, answering questions while they scanned me. Hours. So today I had the day off. But I’m not good with days off, so here I am, bright and early, ready to help _you_. Because, this time, I was available. You asked me to be here, so here I am. If all you want from me is some... theory, then that’s tough, because I also happen to be your sister, and I care for you. Mom told me that she tried to burn you alive, and you told me that you lost your powers, and I didn’t know _any_ of that. I’ll help if I can, I’ll come up with a theory if I can – but if I can’t, I’d like it if my mom could stop blaming herself for something that wasn’t her fault. Sure, you’ve got other stuff going on, but I didn’t know any of that until a few minutes ago and, frankly, the fact that Mom’s... in a bit of trouble is more important than the fact that you don’t have super powers anymore.”

Buffy opened her mouth as though she was going to say something, but then she looked at Anya again and closed it. After a second, she said “It’s not just the Slayer stuff. There’s something else too.” Buffy took Dawn by the arm and steered her out of the library. “Something private.”


	5. Chapter Five

Dawn didn’t like the room they were in.

There wasn’t anything _wrong_ with the room – it was a standard classroom. It was empty, because it was early in the morning, and it was open, because this was Sunnydale. It was close to the library.

The reason Dawn didn’t like it was because she had been there before. Or, possibly, she _hadn’t_ been there before. This was the room she had come to when she’d arrived in the alternate reality where Buffy had been living in Cleveland, with a pen in her hand and a sheath of paper under her arm. Buffy sat on a desk, the same desk that Dawn had sat at while she had tried to figure out how different dimensions worked.

She didn’t want to be here. It didn’t really matter to her that Buffy was fidgeting, that Buffy’s legs were swinging constantly, to and fro, that Buffy was so tense that she couldn’t keep still, even for a second. She didn’t like the room. She couldn’t help but think that a vampire with a face like a bat would come bursting in at any second and snap Buffy’s neck like a twig. It had been in the library before, where that had happened, where she had hid under a table and the master had grabbed her by the hair and _pulled_ , but that wasn’t really important. She’d been to the library before that, been there after that. But here and now, in this room that was a couple of memorial plaques away from being a different dimension, with Buffy without powers and a second Slayer in Sunnydale, Dawn couldn’t help but think that they were just tempting fate by being in this room.

She opened her mouth to say so, but Buffy spoke first. “Do you remember Angel?”

“The vampire? The one who took the Judge pieces away? Sure.” Dawn said absently, not really paying attention. She stood in a place that allowed her to keep both an eye on the door and the windows at the same time. “Hey, listen, do you mind if-“

“He came back the day before yesterday.” Buffy said, her voice quiet. She was looking at her hands as they absently toyed with her sleeve, and Dawn wondered if her sister was talking to _her_ , or if she was just talking, getting the words out because they had to be said. “He came back because he’d heard that I’d died, and he... he said that he’d stay.”

“That’s nice of him.” Dawn commented. “But seriously, can we-“

“Can I finish?” Buffy snapped, looking up.

 _No,_ Dawn thought. No. They should leave, find another room somewhere, _anywhere_ else. “Yes.”

“He said he’d hidden the pieces so well that no one would ever find them, and he said that he could stay and I kissed him.” Buffy blushed slightly, and couldn’t meet Dawn’s eye. “You want to know where I was, the night before last? Why I wasn’t at home? It had nothing to do with Mom and the demon and the burning alive thing. I was with him.”

“Uh huh.” Dawn nodded.

Buffy looked surprised. Clearly she had expected more of a reaction than that. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Well, yeah. Your boyfriend shows up after months spent who-knows-where, and you decide to spend some time with him. Got to say, Buff, I’m not quite getting the punch line here.”

“I, uh, didn’t exactly spend time with him.” Buffy said awkwardly. “I mean, I spend time with people every night, out on a patrol and such, but with Angel I, um, spend a different kind of time.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t think you get what I’m saying.”

“It sounds like you’re saying that you spent time with your boyfriend, but then you’re saying that you didn’t, except that you did. Is this some kind of language that people in relationships learn? Because this is going clean over my head.”

Buffy laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Oh, Dawn. You’re pretty much the only person I know who wouldn’t get what I’m saying.”

“Thank you. I mean, I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“You should. It’s sweet.” Buffy paused for a moment. “Let’s just say that we did the kind of thing that two people who... love each other do when they haven’t seen each other for a long time.”

“Oh.” Dawn said. “Hold on, we _are_ talking about sex, right?”

Buffy smiled despite herself. “Yes, Dawn.”

“You know, you could have just said that.” Dawn grumbled. “It would have saved a lot of time. I’ve been told that I’m impossibly dense when it comes to that kind of thing.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Buffy said, although she made a note to ask Dawn under what circumstances someone had told her that. It would have to be some other time, though, when everything wasn’t going wrong. “But, see, the thing about Angel is he wasn’t... he wasn’t there, in the morning. He was gone, and I haven’t seen him since. He’s just... gone.”

“Uh huh. And did you by any chance spend the night looking for him?”

Buffy shrugged. “I wanted to, but I was sort of dragooned into showing Kendra all around the place and I kind of fell asleep in the library for a while – not being the Slayer mean that I have to get some sleep _sometime_ \- so it didn’t quite happen.”

“And that’s why you were so tense this morning.”

“This morning?” Buffy snorted. “Tense is my basic state. Waking up to find my boyfriend has vanished pretty much tipped me over into nail-biting panic.”

“Sure.” Dawn didn’t comment on the fact that Buffy’s nails were perfect. “Explains why you bit my head off back there.”

“Sorry about that.”

“While I’m flattered that you decided to tell _me_ this, you have to know that I am just about the least helpful person that you could have told, right?”

“I wasn’t planning on telling anyone.” Buffy said sheepishly. “You just happened to yell at me about sharing stuff, and I... I guess I needed someone to know, or... yeah. But the others will probably lecture me and I don’t want to know about him being a 200-year-old vampire or the fact that he’s supposed to be guarding the pieces of a ridiculously powerful demon or that I’m not even eighteen yet.”

“Right.” Dawn said, not wanting to say anything else. She didn’t think that she had anything to contribute to that side of the issue. “By the way, you said that he said that he’d heard you died.”

“Yup.”

“Did he say who told him?”

“Nooo...” Buffy replied, blushing. “We didn’t really get that far.”

“Urgh. I mean, you died a while ago, technically, but Kendra only turned up a couple of days ago and the only people who knew that you were dead in the other reality were me and your friends. So if Angel was off in... Timbuctoo or some other remote place, who told him you were dead?”

Buffy shrugged. “Well, the Watchers would know that I died – I mean, another Slayer turned up, so they had to know. Some of them, at least. Maybe Angel found out from one of them?”

“Somehow I doubt that an ancient order of people dedicated to training Slayers and fighting the forces of evil took the time to contact a powerful vampire.” Dawn replied.

“Plus, I don’t know where he was. I mean, Kendra’s from Jamaica – maybe Angel was hiding the Judge up there, and he, I don’t know, saw Kendra and figured that she was the Slayer. Or overheard her.”

Dawn shrugged. “I suppose. Still, it seems a little strange that he-“ She trailed off.

“What?”

“Hmm?” Dawn said, looking at the door. “Oh. I just saw Ms Calendar go past. She looked like she was laughing.”

Buffy grinned briefly. “Yeah, she does that. Chances are she was just messing with Giles in the library.”

“Right.” Dawn said, not looking away from the door. Jenny had been walking quickly, her head down, shoulders shaking. She _could_ have been laughing – that was certainly what it had looked like. It could have been the kind of laughter where you find something so funny that you just cannot make a sound, and you just stay shake until your ribs hurt. It could have been that. It had looked like that. Maybe the only reason that Dawn _didn’t_ think that it had been laughter was because she was there, in that room. Maybe it was because she felt uneasy about being there. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what it is.”

“Anyway, I’m sure Angel will show up eventually.” Buffy said. Dawn wasn’t quite sure if she was saying that because she actually thought it was true, or if she was trying to convince herself that it was. “Then I can ask him how he heard I was... yeah. Anyway. That’s why I’ve been on edge and haven’t been to see Mom.”

“You should talk to her.” Dawn said. “I don’t mean about you and Angel, you know, the specifics. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to know. But you can tell her that you’re... occupied with all this Slayer stuff, or something. Just make her feel better.”

“Whatever. Silence is this town’s disease.” Buffy said, looking at her watch. Before Dawn had a chance to ask her what she meant by that, Buffy added “Anyway, we should get back to the library. Kendra’s probably back from the dawn patrol by now, and you might want to talk to her.”

Dawn doubted it, but she followed Buffy anyway. She knew a conversation change when she saw one.

~*~

As it turned out, Kendra wasn’t back – or, if she was, she wasn’t visible.

What was visible, however, was Giles, sitting slumped on a chair. He held a phone loosely in one hand, but he wasn’t paying any attention to it. He was staring blankly at the table, but his eyes were unfocused and he clearly wasn’t paying any real attention to what was on it.

Which was interesting, because what _was_ on it was definitely something that was worth paying attention to.

It was a syringe, full of some kind of liquid.

“Uh, Giles?” Buffy said gently.

“I know why you don’t have your Slayer powers.” Giles said dully. He made a half-hearted gesture towards the syringe. “I’m afraid that it’s my fault.”

Buffy looked at the syringe, then back at Giles, then at the syringe again. “You what?”

“It’s... it’s part of a Council-mandated test. It’s a concoction that strips you of your powers, and then – then you have to deal with a vampire. Powerless. Helpless.”

“ _What?_ Why-”

“I didn’t want to do it.” Giles said. He didn’t take his eyes off the syringe, but he still quite clearly wasn’t seeing it. “I protested, protested in the strongest possible terms but... I wasn’t strong enough. And then Kendra showed up, and obviously I couldn’t continue, the test couldn’t continue, because if there’s a Slayer with powers around then _they_ should be the one to deal with any vampire problems, but the Council didn’t listen, and if I stopped – they were arranging for Kendra to be called back to Jamaica soon, setting up something that needed her there. She might be on her way back now, as far as I know.”

“Giles, you can’t-“

“Please, Buffy, let me finish. I know that this is a... an unconscionable breach of trust, and I have no right to ask you to hear me out, but... there are things that you need to know, and _damn_ the Council.” Then, and only then, did Giles look at Buffy. His expression was angry, and sad, and guilty. Each emotion struggled for control of his face. “I’m afraid that today isn’t a good day in terms of finding out that people aren’t quite who you think they are.”

Buffy opened her mouth, then closed it again. Then she moved forward, suddenly, and Giles flinched slightly, but Buffy just pulled out a chair and sat down. She made no motion to speak.

“You remember that Angel was cursed with a soul by a gypsy clan?” Giles asked. He paused, seemingly for Buffy to respond, but she didn’t. By the look on her face, she was too overwhelmed to do much of anything. “It appears that they wanted to have someone keep an eye on him, in case he... in case the curse failed. It turns out there’s a loophole, a way that it can be broken, and... they had Jenny keep watch. Ms Calendar. Although that isn’t her name. She was supposed to watch and make sure the curse still held and when Angel left she stayed because... because of me, and she lied to me and now... now she told me that Angel’s coming back, that the gypsies told her that the curse is weakening.”

Oh. So she hadn’t been laughing then.

“They told her that the curse can be broken if Angel ever feels a moment of perfect happiness.”

Buffy rubbed her eyes tiredly. Everything about her looked tired – her shoulders were curved, she was slouched over the table as though the chair was the only thing keeping her upright, and all the tension had drained from her. “Well, I think it’s a bit late for that.”

The she started to laugh, a low, dark chuckle that had no mirth in it whatsoever, and Dawn couldn’t tell when the laughter stopped and the tears began.


	6. Chapter Six

“Buffy!” Joyce exclaimed. “You’re - oh. What’s wrong, honey?”

The question was addressed to Buffy, but it was Dawn who answered. She had her arm around her younger sister. Buffy wasn’t currently crying, but clearly had been. “Well, uh… some Slayer stuff.” Dawn looked at Buffy, trying to see if there was some cue as to what exactly she should say, but Buffy seemed like she was in shock. Hardly surprising, given that her boyfriend had apparently reverted into being an absolute psychopath, her favourite teacher had turned out to a spy for a clan of gypsies and the closest thing that she had to a father figure since Hank had stopped being available been secretly drugging her. “How much do you want to know?”

Buffy snorted at that. Dawn wasn’t quite sure if it was a leftover from her sobbing earlier or if it was in response to Dawn’s question - if it was the latter, she couldn’t imagine _why_ it would be - but Joyce flinched slightly at the sound. “As much as you want to share.” Joyce said, after a few moments.

“Everything’s gone bad.” Buffy said. Her voice thick. “Everything. You were right, what you said - there’s no point to me Slaying things. I made a monster. Me. It wouldn’t - and there are already monsters. My friends, I thought…” She trailed off. “ I’m going to my room.” She easily moved out from under Dawn’s arm, and made for the stairs. Joyce went to follow. “Alone, Mom.” Seeing the stricken look on Joyce’s face, she softened slightly. “It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you for the… you know, the fire thing. I just… I just need to be alone right now. Take stock and… yeah.”

Joyce watched her go, before turning to Dawn. “What happened?”

Dawn shrugged sheepishly. “Uh… did you ever meet Angel?”

Joyce frowned. “No. Who’s that?”

She wouldn’t have heard of him, Dawn supposed. He’d gone to hide the Judge pieces long before Joyce had found out that Buffy was the Slayer, and Dawn highly doubted that Buffy would have mentioned him to her mom. Having a cursed vampire who was over two centuries old wasn’t really someone to bring home with you, even with the attendant awkwardness of him being the first boyfriend Buffy had had. Of course, now it was _really_ awkward because Dawn really didn’t want to explain that Buffy having sex had led to the return of one of the most murderous vampires in history. “Well, uh, he was her boyfriend. It’s been a long distance relationship for the last year or so - or I suppose it hasn’t, because I’m pretty sure they didn’t really keep in touch, and, um… well, see, the thing is he’s kind of a vampire.” Dawn hurried on before Joyce could say anything, because she could see that Joyce wanted to and she was fairly certain that it she did then this whole thing would escalate into something that Dawn just didn’t want to deal with. She didn’t have the energy for this. She’d thought that she turn up and have a crack at the puzzle of the second Slayer, she hadn’t thought that she’d be swept up in all this drama. At this point, she thought that she would have been better off if she had just stayed in her room hiding from Jinks.

“I say he’s _kind_ of a vampire because a hundred years or so ago he was cursed with a soul by some gypsies, because he was a… let’s just say he was a bad guy. So he had a soul. And now the curse is broken. So he’s back to being a bad guy. Who probably kind of has a thing for Buffy, which is really not a good thing for her given the things he’s done. And, um, there’s some other stuff too. Like the fact that Giles was the reason she lost her powers, and his girlfriend was a spy for the gypsies which no one knew about. But the Angel thing is probably the big deal.” Dawn stopped talking. This was complicated, even for her, and she’d met Angel before. She’d been in the loop with all of this stuff rather longer than Joyce had been - on top of that, one of the benefits of being physically absent was that it made it easier for Buffy to tell her things that she probably wouldn’t tell her mother.

Joyce digested all of that. She seemed to be taking it fairly well. “I see.” She said neutrally. “She’s being betrayed by everyone.”

Dawn blinked. That wasn’t really what she had expected Joyce to take away from that. “Uh, no? She still has you, and me, and her friends. There’s that other Slayer too, I suppose, and she-”

“Does she? You told her that you couldn’t be here for her. I-I tried to kill her, and her friends, and… I haven’t been there for her either, you know.” Joyce walked into the kitchen and started making a pot of coffee. Dawn was willing to bet that it had nothing to do with the fact that it was early in the morning - it was just something for Joyce to do with her hands. “I know that the demon messed with my head, I _know_ that, but some of the things I said were… not lies. They weren’t things that the demon put in my head, they were me, they were things that _I_ had thought.”

“I told you before that I… that if there’s something difficult, I sort of… shut it out. Hide, and pretend it goes away. I did it with your dad - I _knew_ he was having an affair, I knew it, but if I pretended I didn’t then everything was okay. And when you were in hospital I didn’t… and all the stuff that Buffy does at night.” Joyce said. Her back was to Dawn. The kettle was boiling, she had the cup and the milk and the sugar all ready and she had nothing left to do but wait for the kettle, so she just stood there and gripped the edge of the counter. “When she was tied at the stake, when we were going to - when _I_ was going to… I said I just wanted two normal, happy daughters. And I didn’t, I-I-I _don’t_ , and I was standing there and I thought if she would just burn then everything would be okay, there wouldn’t be any more of… _this_ , we could go back to like we were before when there was just normal stuff. I mean, it makes no sense, but I - oh, God. I’m so sorry, Dawn.”

“I get the feeling I should be hurt.” Dawn said slowly. She was surprised that she didn’t. “I mean, I know it’s difficult, that I’ve been incredibly lucky that I haven’t been - that all the stigmas and stuff that people get with mental health, that I haven’t had that. I know it’s difficult - I _know_ it’s difficult, I’ve seen it. And I know I’d do a lot to sort it out.” She’d shot Artie with a Tesla and put MacPherson in a pocket dimension, for one thing. And she’d seen everything that Claudia had to go through, every time Dawn locked herself away or when she yelled at her or had to deal with Dawn feeling so worthless that she barely even saw the point in breathing. “I also know what it’s like when your brain doesn’t quite work right. I’ve yelled at people for things that are absolutely not their fault, I’ve blamed them for things that they couldn’t have done anything about. I’ve tried to drive people away, and I - that’s not the point. See, the thing is, I know what it’s like to think that there’s something that makes sense, some solution that explains everything, only to find out that there’s not and it’s just my brain messing around with me and that really it’s stupid and… yeah. It’s fine to want normal happy daughters. I wish I was a normal and happy daughter, but I don’t really know if that’s ever going to happen. I do know that burning Buffy alive wouldn’t give you that, but that doesn’t mean that it’s bad to wish that it we weren’t like this.” Dawn sighed. “There’s a thin line between wishing that we weren’t the way we are and hating us, _demonising_ us for it.”

Joyce turned around. “Right.”

Dawn could see that she didn’t get it, didn’t understand, but that was fine. She’d get there. Even if Dawn had to keep on saying it until she got it, until she understood. She had enough experience feeling guilty about things that were beyond her control to know that it took time to deal with. “Seriously, Mom. I don’t blame you. Buffy doesn’t either.” Dawn didn’t add that Buffy was almost certainly too busy blaming herself and Giles and Jenny. “You should go up there. Do… I don’t know, comforting Mom things. I tried talking to her, but what do I know about boyfriends, let alone vampires and betrayal?” As she spoke, she realised that this was probably how Artie had felt over the whole situation with MacPherson. He’d been Artie’s friend, and he’d betrayed him and Artie had hated him for it - but he couldn’t help but hate HG even more, because she’d taken MacPherson away.

Dawn was very, very glad that she wasn’t Jenny Calendar right then.

“What about you?” Joyce said softly. “What are you going to do?”

“Me?” Dawn shrugged. “I’m going to go back home. There’s something I need to deal with, and I… I can’t hide forever.”  
~*~

Dawn wasn’t particularly surprised to find that Jinks and Pete were sitting at the dining room table. By the time she’d driven from Sunnydale to LA, and factoring in the different time zones in California and South Dakota, it was early afternoon by the time she got back.

Pete was explaining, at great length, how he’d managed to solve the mind challenge in the Egyptian Warehouse. By the look on his face, this wasn’t the first time that Jinks had heard about it. Dawn hesitated briefly, looked up the stairs that led to her room, and then sat down at the table.

If she happened to sit closer to Pete, that was simply because of the arrangement of the chairs, nothing more.

Pete waved at her as she sat down, but didn’t stop talking. “So, anyway Myka didn’t know what to do, HG didn’t know what to do, but hey _hey_ hey, I knew what to do! And that’s how I solved the mind puzzle!”

“Yeah, but I solved the other two.” Dawn said. Jinks blinked, and looked away, and Dawn wondered if she’d been lying. She wondered if that was even how he reacted to someone lying, or if she was just being a little paranoid.

She supposed that she _had_ lied, though. Although she wasn’t sure if it was actually an out-and-out lie or if it was just semantics. The problem, she realised, was in the word ‘solved’. She didn’t think that she could really say that she had ‘solved’ the body puzzle. HG had already gotten more or less everyone across, and it had been far quicker and easier than Dawn’s method. At best, she could say that they solved it together. And, of course, hallucinating your sister teleporting in with a quasi-magical sword and destroying the artefact which ran the soul test hardly counted as solving it, especially as no one was really sure how she’d managed that in the first place.

“I didn’t die doing mine.” Pete grumbled. At first, Dawn was surprised that he’d said that, and she could see that Jinks was, but then she realised that Pete was making light of the matter to make her feel better. As if, if _he_ thought that dying was no big deal, then there was no reason why she should either.

“ _Spine of Saracen._ ” Dawn said, trying to make it sound like a cough. Pete scowled at her. “Anyway, Jinks, sorry about earlier. Or yesterday, I suppose. You kind of took me by surprise.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Jinks said. “ _I’m_ surprised enough just being here. Plus you weren’t even close to the weirdest welcome here.” He gestured at Pete. “This one decided it would be a good idea to take his shirt off.”

Dawn tilted her head, wondering if she could possibly have heard that right. She couldn’t imagine a sentence that sounded similar enough for her to misconstrue it, but surely Jinks couldn’t have said what she thought he had said. “He... took his shirt off.”

Jinks crossed his arms. “Yeah. You want to explain your logic on that one, Pete?”

As Pete began unabashedly explaining that Steve was gay and therefore just about the only person around who would appreciate the view, Claudia walked in. Dawn waved, and tried to communicate to her the fact that she was sitting there, talking, socialising, and really it wasn’t all that bad. Claudia grinned at her, and after a moment sat down on her other side and started ribbing Pete about being an exhibitionist.


	7. Chapter Seven

“So.” Claudia said, plonking herself down on Dawn’s bed. “How you doing?”

Dawn didn’t answer immediately. She didn’t think that Claudia really expected her too – she had a pen in her hand, paper on the wall and hair in her mouth, and the younger woman knew Dawn well enough to know that immediate reactions weren’t always going to happen.

The reason that there wasn’t a quick answer ready for Claudia wasn’t because Dawn was deep in thought. The various scrunched up pieces of paper strewn liberally around the room were testament to the fact that Dawn hadn’t yet managed to get anywhere. She didn’t feel like she was in the right frame of mind to solve anything – she _wanted_ to work out a theory, and she felt that she should, but she was tired and there were too many things on her mind to really focus.

The _other_ reason that there wasn’t a quick answer was a little bit more complicated. She couldn’t tell Claudia about anything happening at Sunnydale - even if she said something vague about Buffy’s boyfriend turning out to be a not very nice guy, that would still open up a whole discussion about her family life that she didn’t want to get into. While Claudia had managed to procure an artefact to kill Buffy temporarily so that the Master didn’t do it for real, Dawn had never been able to tell her that was why she’d needed the artefact. Claudia had been kind enough to believe Dawn’s explanation, but Dawn wasn’t going to get into any of the goings-on in Sunnydale with her if she didn’t have to.

Dawn also didn’t _want_ to tell Claudia that she was worried about the results of her scans, which should probably come in later in the afternoon. She didn’t want to tell her that she was still uncomfortable with having Jinks around, earlier display notwithstanding.

So instead, Dawn went with the perennial answer of troubled people who don’t want to bother others. “I’m fine.” The answer, when it came, was delivered in her best absentminded academic voice. She hoped that Claudia would think she was too busy to get into a proper conversation.

“I just wanted to check that you were still okay after the whole dead thing.” Claudia said conversationally. “And you seemed kind of spaced out when we talked yesterday, so I thought I’d see if you’re actually okay with the whole Jinks thing.”

“I haven’t really even thought about the dead thing.” Dawn said truthfully. “I haven’t really had time, what with Jinks showing up and family drama and stuff. I’m fine with it, I think. I mean, there might be a time when I’m not fine with it, but that’ll be then and if I need to I’ll camp outside your door. But I’m fine with it now.”

“I’m pretty sure that the only reason that Artie had me along on the mission we met Jinks on was because of you dying. You know, to keep my mind off of it.” Claudia scratched her head. “Which is a little strange when you think about it, because you got over it pretty quickly and I didn’t even know about it until after it happened. Plus there was the whole thing with HG...”

“Doing something else to take your mind off something big is pretty standard.” Dawn said. 

“Aha! I knew it!” Claudia said. “Something is bothering you!”

Dawn looked at her, nonplussed. “What?”

“You hiding up here with the paper and the thoughtful expression.”

“Right. Because I’m so rarely up here, and Leena puts large pieces of paper on everyone’s walls.”

Claudia waved away her point. “Yeah, yeah, I know you do – but there was also you jetting off to California in the early hour of the morning and you so pointedly making an effort to speak to Jinks.”

Dawn smiled despite herself. “You noticed that, huh?”

“When you waved at me, you were all like ‘hey, look at me being friendly’. Subtle you were not.”

After a moment, Dawn capped her pen and sat down next to Claudia with a sigh. “I like Jinks. He seems like a nice guy. He’s gotten over the endless wonder thing pretty quick, which I suspect is because of Pete telling him about all his crazy exploits over and over again. But I don’t like that he’s here. It just doesn’t seem right that the moment, literally the _moment_ that HG does something wrong there’s another agent ready to swoop in and take her place. HG will never admit it, will nod and say that Artie made the right call, but it’s... not cool.”

“It’s the lying thing too, isn’t it?” Claudia said quietly.

Dawn looked at her for a long moment before nodding. “I’d like to say it’s not. I know you and Myka and Leena and everyone say that it’s fine if I say things but... sometimes I have to say that I’m fine when I’m not. I know you guys are all supportive, but that’s what I have Stirling for and I just... there will be times when I talk a lot, and I don’t want some guy I don’t really know standing there and I look at him and I know that he knows I’m lying, because half the time I won’t know I’m lying and...”

“It’s part of the reason I came to see you yesterday.” Claudia admitted. “To warn you. I know you know that you can talk to me, but I’ve been where you are. Sometimes...”

“Sometimes.” Dawn agreed. “I _am_ fine, though. Honestly. I might be a little wigged by Mr Lie Detector, and I can’t say that hearing about whatever is going on inside my head is something to fill me with joy, but I’m fine.”

“I know.” Claudia said. “I just needed you to know that you can tell me if you’re not.”

“Thank you.”

“I will admit that that isn’t the only reason I’m up here though.”

Dawn shot a look at her. “You’d better be about to tell me that Leena’s making cookies.”

“She’s not.” Claudia replied with a smile. “Sorry. It’s just an idea that I wanted to run past you.”

Dawn gestured at her floor, littered with paper as it was. “I don’t think that now is the best time to talk to me about ideas.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got the actual idea already. I just wanted to run it by you to see what you think first.”

“Okay. But if it’s not an idea about cookies I don’t know what good I’ll be.”

“I can ask Leena to make some if you want.”

“No, it’s fine.” Dawn paused for a moment. “Well, maybe after you tell me your idea.”

“How fast can your teleporter teleport?”

Dawn blinked. “Well, it’s instantaneous travel. Also that’s not an idea, that’s a-“

“Bear with me a bit.” Claudia interrupted. “I don’t mean how fast teleporting takes. I want to know how long it takes to teleport.”

Dawn tried to process that, and gave up part way through. “Sorry, Claud. Would you mind trying that again? You’re just saying the same words in a different order and I don’t get it.”

“I mean, the process of teleporting. You put in the coordinates and then stand on the spot and go, right?”

“Well, yeah. You know that. You’ve done it yourself.” Dawn said.

“Yeah. So here’s the idea part. Say if you made it so that you stand on the spot, and you go – to the same spot? And you made a loop so that you just keep teleporting in and out?”

Dawn mulled it over. “I didn’t build it for that. I never really liked the coordinate interface anyway, I didn’t like having to use a computer, and I’m not sure that a teleporter could take an incessant amount of functions one after the other. Also I don’t get the point. You’d just be stuck.”

“That _is_ the point.” Claudia said. “I was thinking about how people keep breaking into the Warehouse, but if you had a teleporter set up like that so that if you didn’t enter the code then you’d get stuck in an infinite loop, then people breaking in suddenly stops being an issue.”

“I’ve never tried teleporting anything into the Warehouse.” Dawn pointed out. “The thing’s bigger on the inside, I don’t think coordinates even map onto anything in there.”

“But it would just be at the entrance.” Claudia pointed out. “A safety precaution. Like the bombs.”

“I don’t want to be melodramatic here, but I think that having a teleporter working nonstop trying to keep some Big Bad out of a Warehouse full of madcap might be worse than a few bombs. Especially given that I don’t even know how the teleporter _really_ works.”

“We could test it. Something small and not an artefact.”

"Also, if it did work, why not just teleport the bad guy somewhere far away? It would be safer."

"But then they might come back, and they'd know there was a teleporter and they might figure out a way past it."

“Okay. I really don’t think it’s a good idea.” Dawn said. “Well, no – I think it is a good idea, and if it worked then it would be a pretty good way of stopping bad people getting into the Warehouse. But there’s too many variables, and too many of the variables are dangerous. We could test it – maybe even set one up here at the B&B if it works – but I’m not going to have any teleporters in the Warehouse until I know how they work. If I react weirdly to artefacts, then something that only I can build that may or may not be an artefact... that’s not good.”

Claudia nodded. “Fair enough. I just wanted to run the idea past you.”

“It’s an interesting idea.” Dawn acknowledged. “I’ll tinker with mine, see if it’ll cope with the strain of using it like that.”

~*~

Loops.

It hit Dawn suddenly, while she was lying on her bed thinking about modifications she could make to her teleporter the next time she was in LA.

Loops.

She’d been thinking about the alternate reality all wrong, she realised. She’d thought that Anya had taken two parallel universes – one where Dawn was dead, and one where she wasn’t – and then she’d brought them together. Two lines which had been in parallel, brought to a point. The point being the universe created by Cordelia’s wish. A universe with parts from both of its parent universes, as well as few changes created by the two being brought together in the first place. Then, when Anya’s necklace had been broken, Dawn had thought that the wish-created universe had simply ceased to be, the original universes once again running parallel, exactly as they always had, and only a few memories in a few people’s heads to say otherwise.

That had explained why, when Anya’s necklace had been broken, Dawn had found herself outside the library that same morning. But it didn’t explain why there was a second Slayer.

But a loop did.

Still two lines, meeting a point. But instead of springing apart due to the breaking of a necklace – _retroactively_ springing apart, never to even come together in the first place – there was a loop, one for each universe, going back to the moment that they had been pushed together. It was Novikov again – if there was no loop, then Anya’s necklace would never have been broken in the original timeline and then there would be a loop, the irony of which was not lost on Dawn. They’d keep reliving the same day over and over, endlessly breaking Anya’s necklace and endlessly resetting to the time before it had broken. It would be a paradox. But Anya’s necklace _had_ broken, and there _was_ a second Slayer, so what happened in that universe _had_ happened. But after it had happened the universes had doubled back to the moment before it happened, and then they’d gone on as though it never had happened.

More or less. Save for a few memories, a broken necklace, and a new Slayer.

It made Dawn’s head hurt thinking about it, but she was right, she was sure she was right. She knew how Anya had done it, knew why she couldn’t do it anymore, knew why Kendra was now the second Slayer.

She didn’t know what to do with that information, though. She didn’t know how to relate it to her project to find out what the Key really was, or how it worked. She didn’t know if she could.

But that was a matter for another day. At that moment, all Dawn cared about was the fact that she had solved a problem, no matter how irrelevant it might be, and that was enough for her.


	8. Chapter Eight

Everyone was there.

Myka wasn’t sure _why_ everyone was there. She, Pete and Artie were there because there’d been a ping, Leena was there because she was making cookies and Dawn was hovering around her, waiting for the cookies to be done. Jinks and Claudia were sitting at the table as though Artie was going to give them a mission, but he only gave files to Myka and Pete and talked to them as though they were the only two there.

Everyone was there. Even Dawn, although she looked uncomfortable, as though she would really rather be in her room.

Everyone except for HG. 

That was why Myka didn’t ask why Claudia and Jinks were there. That was why she didn’t listen to Artie’s reply when Claudia asked – at least, she _tried_ not to listen. She didn’t move to pick up the report, didn’t read it.

It was easier than she would have thought. Normally, by the time Pete had gotten Artie to give them the rundown so that he didn’t have to read the debriefing, Myka would have already be halfway through memorizing it. It had always seemed a little strange to her that Pete didn’t do the same, and that he found it easier to get Artie to talk when everything was already there in a file. But it was easy to not pay attention. She just had to look down at her hands, and breathe, and concentrate on breathing so that she wasn’t sucked into the maelstrom of artefact hunting.

Even so, a few words made it through to her. She heard something about spider webs and something about Kansas, but she also heard something about Charlotte which didn’t make sense to her, given that Charlotte wasn’t in Kansas. She almost asked for clarification then, but didn’t. She felt inordinately proud for not having done so.

She supposed that she should be grateful for the fact that Jinks and Claudia were there, because if it had just been her, Pete and Artie she doubted that she could have gotten away with being quiet and inactive for so long. As it was, it wasn’t until the moment that they would normally have gone upstairs and teleported away that someone noticed that Artie noticed that she hadn’t touched her report.

“Myka? Are you okay?”

Myka looked up. “Hmm? Oh. I was just going to sit this mission out.”

She was overwhelmed by variations on the theme of “What’s wrong?”

She raised a hand. She couldn’t help but smile slightly. “I injured my wrist doing a crossword puzzle.”

There was a moment of stunned silence while people tried to work that out. “Are you joking?” Pete said, after a moment. “I didn’t think that you had a sense of humour about these things, but... you have to be joking, right?”

“Completely serious.”

Jinks turned to Claudia. “Is this some kind of hazing?” He said quietly.

“What? No. Why?”

“She’s lying.”

“I don’t understand.” Artie said, eyebrows furrowed. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing.” Myka said calmly. Despite her tone, her heart was beating rather faster than she would have liked. “Just an injury. I have plenty of sick days stored up, I can take my time until it gets better.”

“I don’t... do you need to see Vanessa?”

“Dr Calder? Don’t see why. After all, taking sick days is my decision, isn’t it? I shouldn’t defer to the judgement of someone else. Not even if that someone knows what they’re doing.”

Everyone looked confused.

Except for Artie, who went expressionless, sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I see.”

“Want to share with the rest of us?” Pete said.

“Myka’s going on strike until I make a decision about HG.”

“What, me?” Myka said, in as innocent a voice as she could manage. “I’m just taking some sick days while my wrist heals. You wouldn’t want us to go hunting dangerous artefacts when we’re not at our best, would you? Besides, Claudia and... Steve here can pick up the slack. I mean, that’s what they’re here for, right?” She knew she was being unfair, could see it in the hurt look in Claudia’s eyes, but she’d come this far. She’d seen how torn up Dawn had been while Artie decided whether she should stay at the Warehouse, and she _wasn’t_ going to let HG go through the same thing. Especially not when she knew that Artie’s decision was hardly going to be unbiased.

“I’m not going to be pressured.” Artie said flatly. “Not by you.”

“Listen guys.” Pete said diplomatically. “We can work this out, we don’t need to-“

“Shut up, Pete.” Artie interrupted. “Myka, I am _ordering_ you to hunt down this artefact.”

“Can’t. Taking a sick day.” Myka said blandly. “This _is_ still the Secret Service, right? We can still take sick days? Because if I left the Service to be at the beck and call of someone and their _abominable_ decision making skills, then I think I’d better get back to work.” She saw Dawn flinch at the word ‘abominable’, and, though it made her uncomfortable to upset the younger woman like that, Myka shot her a look as though to say yes, she knew what she’d said and yes, she’d meant it. She wasn’t really surprised when Dawn turned and darted up the stairs. She’d looked uncomfortably being there even before this had started.

~*~

Dawn hesitated on the landing upstairs. What she wanted to do was go to her room and hide under the duvet until all of this went away, but she didn’t think that she could do that. At least not right away. She thought that she should at least tell HG what was going on.

Of course, the other woman probably knew – Artie was hardly being quiet. Maybe she was being sensible and staying out of it. But Dawn felt as though she should check. With all the chaos going on in Sunnydale, Dawn didn’t think that she could handle it if everything started falling apart here as well. Not if there was something, no matter how redundant, that she could do about it.

So, after waiting outside HG’s door for about a minute while she screwed up the courage to knock, Dawn knocked.

There was no reply.

Dawn frowned. She was reasonably sure that HG was in – she almost always was, except when she was with her counsellor and Dawn didn’t think that she had an appointment right then. Maybe HG was asleep – although she doubted it, because HG didn’t seem to sleep all that much and even if she was, it was heading into the afternoon now and she didn’t think that anyone could sleep through all the noise anyway.

So after a moment, Dawn opened the door.

HG _was_ there. She was sitting at her desk, with the dissected remains of what looked like a cell phone spread out before her. She didn’t seem to have noticed Dawn come in.

Dawn cleared her throat. To her credit, HG didn’t jump – she just stiffened slightly and turned around. She was wearing the same expression that Dawn had tried for that morning – the occupied scientist expression. She probably hadn’t heard the discussion, hadn’t heard Dawn knock. She’d been too absorbed by whatever she was doing to even notice. “Hello, Dawn. Can I help you with something?”

“Uh.” Dawn paused. “Maybe. Um. Myka and Artie are kind of... fighting. Over you.”

HG went very still, and her face went blank. “Explain, please.”

“Well, um... there’s been a ping, I mean, Artie figured out that there’s an artefact out in some small town in... that’s not important. The thing is that Myka’s refusing to go, saying that she’s injured her wrist even though she clearly hasn’t and she’s taking a sick day. She’s making it look like she’s doing everything by the book and not going on strike but she keeps making these pointed comments and... yeah.”

HG looked at her for a long moment. “I see. Do you think that you could send her up here? I’d go down, but I fear that seeing me might... inflame the situation.”

Dawn looked at the door, then back at HG. “Uh... no. I don’t think I can. I think there’s going to be a big blowout no matter what we do.”

“You’re probably right.” HG stood smoothly.

~*~

HG was right. As soon as she appeared on the stairs, Artie’s face went bright red and he started yelling at her – although she had some difficulty hearing what he was saying, because everyone else was also speaking at once. “I would like to speak to Myka for a moment.” She said calmly.

“If you think I-“

“Enough!”

Everyone went quiet.

“I have had _enough_ of this.” Pete said in a quieter voice. “Claud, Jinks, we’re going to Kansas so you can see how a real agent does things. Artie’s going go to his office and do... paperwork or something. Myka and HG are going to have their talk. Then, when we’re back and we’ve calmed down we’ll talk about this like reasonable people.”

Artie opened his mouth to speak, but Pete glared at him and he shut it again. Artie couldn’t help but remember that the last time he’d seen Pete like this, the _only_ other time that he’d seen Pete genuinely angry, had been when he’d yelled at Artie for taking so long to decide whether Dawn should stay or not. 

“Everyone got that? Good.” He gestured to Jinks and Claudia. “I’ll meet you two upstairs in a couple of minutes. I have some things to do.” So saying, he promptly grabbed several cookies.

~*~

“So.” HG said.

“So.” Myka agreed.

“You shouldn’t jeopardise your career for me. I’m not-“

“What did you see, in Warehouse 2?” Myka interrupted. “In the final challenge, the one where Dawn died. What did you see?”

HG blinked. “I-I was with my daughter. Back in my own time.” Her hand didn’t move towards her necklace, but that was only because she made a conscious effort not to do so.

“I was here. Working at the Warehouse. Valda said that that statue showed us what makes us happiest, and what makes me happiest is working here.” Myka said. “You’re part of that.”

“No. No, I’m not. I gave up any claims I might have had to be part of this place when I stole money from the Warehouse to finance an expedition that got people killed.”

“And you’ll have to live with that. Just like you have to live with your daughter being... and I have to live with what happened to Sam. But you’ll have to live with that no matter where you are, and I’m not going to let you go.” Myka said. “I belong here. So do you. You know that. I’m not – I _can’t_ just sit by while Artie decides what to do with you, not while some new guy shows up and... I can’t deal with that.”

“I’m not worth fighting for.” HG said quietly. “I am a murderer, a liar and thief. I have betrayed everyone here.”

“Like I said, you’ll have to live with that. But while you’re dealing with that, why not deal with the fact that you saved Claudia’s life?”

“I would have killed her, too. I would have killed all of you.”

“But you didn’t. You didn’t go through with it.”

“I can’t honestly say that I won’t try again. I am... I am so _angry_ , Myka. I’m angry all the time. Because my daughter died, because they were... when I found them, the men who killed her, they were just men, ordinary men. Not monsters. Just people. And I hoped that by now the world would be better, that there wouldn’t be... but there are still people out there who would kill a young, sick girl. Not because they’re evil, just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The world should be better than that. I would understand if... whatever punishment is decided for me, I will accept it. I deserve it. Not just because of the things that I’ve done, but for the things that I might do.” Her voice was calm and measured, and her face was blank. “I’m not worth fighting for. Any trust that you put in me... I can’t promise that I won’t betray you again.”

Myka’s face, however, was not blank. When she spoke, her voice wavered. “I could have been you. I thought about it, what it would be like if I met Leo again. The man who killed Sam. What I’d do, what he’d say. I used to run it over and over again, why he’d killed Sam, why he... he looked so surprised. Leo. He held the gun and Sam, and Sam... he looked _surprised_ that he’d shot him. In all the cases he’d been involved in, Leo never shot anyone, never hurt anyone. No one except Sam. But I never found him. I never found out what I’d do, what it would be like, what would happen after.” Myka inhaled, a long, shaky breath. “That was Sam. I can’t imagine what it would be like if it had been... if I’d had a daughter. No. That’s not true. I can. I could have been you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t kill him. We didn’t kill your daughter, HG. You don’t need to lash out at us. You don’t need to push us away.” Myka smiled tentatively. “You can leave, if you want. Have an ordinary life and a... you can be away from weapons of mass destruction. You know that, right?”

“I-I’ve thought about it. I wondered whether spending time away from this place would let the memories scab over, if everything would stop being so... raw. I thought about running away in the night, being someone else, forgetting all about me.”

“Why haven’t you?” Myka said quietly.

“I don’t know.”

Myka looked at her for a long moment. “I suggest that you come up with an answer to that. Because as long as you’re here, I’m going to fight for you to _stay_ here. But if you go... if you actually believe all the stuff you’re saying, if you think that you’ll really hurt us again... then go. Just go. I won’t look for you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll have given up. I... if you’re trying, if there’s an end goal, then I will be there with you every step of the way. But I can’t be there for you if you’re not there either.”

HG didn’t say anything for a long time. She didn’t think that she could. So for a minute, two minutes, five minutes, they just sit there and don’t say a word. Sometimes they looked at each other. Sometimes they didn’t.

Eventually, when she felt as though she could, HG spoke. “I didn’t mean why wouldn’t you look for me. I meant why would you fight for me. I have demonstrated conclusively that I’m not-“

“Because I care about you.” Myka interrupted. “I thought I’d made that clear by now.”


	9. Chapter Nine

Dawn didn’t worry about Myka. She didn’t need to – Myka was fine. Myka was always fine. She was the kind of person who was so fine that she would climb in through other people’s windows, just so that she could share how fine she was with them. Dawn didn’t worry. She didn’t.

In order not to worry, she tried to think about something else, which was harder than she might have thought. Although wasn’t worried about Myka – she _wasn’t_ \- thoughts that maybe she should be still kept intruding in her head.

In order to keep them out, Dawn started thinking about how much she didn’t _wish_ that Myka would be okay. She knew that she didn’t need to make a wish, because Myka was never not okay, but that wasn’t why Dawn didn’t wish. She didn’t wish because she didn’t want a demon with a veiny face suddenly appearing in her room and granting it. Of course, she knew that that wouldn’t happen – it wasn’t the kind of wish that would attract a vengeance demon, but she still didn’t want to think about it.

Instead, Dawn started thinking about how a vengeance demon would grant a wish, in general. She’d already worked out the whole folding-two-universes-together thing, but she wanted to work out how they did that. She knew that the answer was probably ‘magic’, but if it was magic then what did they need an amulet for? Breaking the necklace had reversed the wish and turned Anya into a human. If granting wishes was simply ‘magic’, then Dawn could imagine why breaking the necklace might have reversed the wish – maybe the magic was stored in there, or channelled through it, or something. She should probably ask Giles.

But why would it stop her from being a demon? Demons didn’t need magic to be demons. They were just demons, in the same way that people were people. It was what they were. Dawn couldn’t work out why Anya’s demon-ness depended on a magic amulet, when, as far as she knew, no other demon had one.

Except, that wasn’t strictly true, was it? 

There was more than one vengeance demon. So what made them, as a species, different from every other type of demon?

The amulets, obviously.

It was at that point that Dawn realised that she was an idiot.

The necklace was an artefact. Of course it was. It gave the person wearing it the ability to grant wishes – Dawn wasn’t sure if there were other artefacts like that in the Warehouse, but at the very least Poe’s pen allowed someone to make something true just by writing it, and that was basically the same thing. She didn’t know if it had enough power to essentially rewrite history, but that wasn’t important. 

The important thing was that the necklace was an artefact that had given Anya the ability to grant wishes, to teleport and... what else had Giles said? Super strength, or something? She vaguely remembered him saying something about healing.

But... why? Giles had talked about vengeance demons in the plural, which meant that there was at least two of them, probably more – but what kind of artefact gave the ability to grant wishes _and_ various superhuman abilities? Of course, it was possible that the first wish any vengeance demon made was to get those abilities and actually _become_ a demon, but that didn’t seem right. For one thing, they were supposed to be vengeance demons. The wishes they granted were all about revenge, while Dawn could imagine how super strength could certainly be _used_ for revenge, she didn’t think that every single demon would make the same wish and get the same set of powers. And wish-granting and super-powers seemed like two different things. So why would one artefact, or a set of different artefacts, grant the person wearing it abilities that seemed more like they would belong to _two_ different artefacts?

Dawn wanted to talk to someone about that. Her first thought was Giles, before realising that he couldn’t know about artefacts and in any case had running up against a brick wall in regards to his own research about vengeance demons. Her second thought was Myka, which was an avenue of thought that she instantly shut down. Myka was fine.

So. Wishes. Wishes and super strength. Wishes and teleportation. Wishes and healing.

Wishes and healing?

Claudia, nose bleeding, just before Dawn had seen Joshua come through from his pocket dimension the first time. She’s gotten steadily paler, after that, had developed a terrible cough, had even more nosebleeds. Then, after Joshua had been saved and his dimension had fallen apart, she’d been fine. Dawn hadn’t thought about it at the time – she’d hardly been the epitome of health herself – but now she did.

Why _had_ Claudia been ill? Because she had been there, when Joshua had teleported that first time, all those years ago? But Artie hadn’t been ill. So why had Claudia?

Two universes, side by side, until they weren’t. Artie hadn’t seen Joshua. Claudia had. They’d both been there, been in the same room, but one got ill and one saw Joshua (or saw Joshua and got ill), and the other didn’t.

Two universes, side by side, until they weren’t. A wish, making two universes into one. Claudia had been there at the birth of a new universe – a tiny one – and it had made her ill.

How much more ill would she have been, if she’d been the one making the universe? If it had been an enormous, full-scale universe with time and energy and everything?

How much strain would that put on a human?

How much strain would that put on a demon? One that could heal?

(Why hadn’t Artie gotten ill?)

She needed to speak to someone. She was afraid that person was probably Anya.

~*~

Artie was playing the piano.

Myka didn’t really know what to do about that. She needed to speak to Artie, and she was pretty sure she should do it before Pete and the others got back, but she knew that Artie didn’t play the piano unless he didn’t want to be disturbed.

Also, whatever he was playing sounded angry.

Still, she couldn’t just stay lurking in the hall. For one thing, Artie almost certainly knew that she was there, and for another alarms would start going off if she did. She could _technically_ leave, but there was no way that she was actually going to do that.

So instead, she went into Artie’s office, pulled out a chair and sat on it backwards, resting her chin on the backrest. Artie didn’t acknowledge her existence, didn’t look up, didn’t miss a note.

“So.” Myka said, after a little while. Her voice was barely louder than the music, and she wasn’t sure whether Artie could even hear her, but she spoke anyway. “I figure we should probably talk.”

“I think we’ve both said everything we want to say.” Artie replied, not looking up. “You were very clear.”

Myka nodded slowly, then realised there was no point because Artie wasn’t looking at her. “Can I ask you a question?”

There wasn’t a reply, but Myka hadn’t really expected one.

“What would you do, if MacPherson came in and said that he was sorry for everything that he’d done, that he’d been going through some... dark times, and that he’d like to work through his issues and eventually become a Warehouse agent again?”

“Bronze him.” Artie said instantly, in an even tone. Even so, there was a slight burr in the music as he hit a wrong note. “But he’s dead, so that’s not an issue. The issue here is the woman who killed him.”

“You know he wanted to die, right?”

Artie stopped, suddenly, and looked up at her. Myka really wished he hadn’t.

“I mean, besides Dawn saying that he looked happy to be killed, and that he broke HG Wells out and, well, you know what _her_ plan was. Seems kind of obvious that he wanted her to kill him.” Myka said hurriedly. “So, um, if he’d come here and said that he was having... you know, and then said he wanted to make amends, that he realised that he hadn’t been in healthy place and... what would you do?”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Tell me what? About MacPherson? No. I figured it was better not to ask and, well, it seemed kind of obvious.”

“It seemed obvious to you that she was sincere about re-joining the Warehouse, too, and look how that ended up. Or are you saying that those archaeology students who died wanted to die too?”

“She’s sorry-“

“Sorry? _Sorry_? She didn’t kill them by _accident_ , Myka! She knew how dangerous Warehouse 2 could be, and she sent them anyway.”

“And then you sent us there, too. Like you send us out on missions all the time – like you sent us to get the Spine of Saracen, and Pete died.” Myka said evenly. “Before you say that we know how dangerous it is, and the students didn’t – trust me, I know. And HG... she knows. Trust me, she knows exactly what she’s done. Just imagine how you’d have felt if you’d sent us there and Dawn had died and stayed dead... and then imagine how much worse you’d feel if she’d just been some random person who had no idea what they were getting into. Then imagine how much worse you’d feel, you’d _have_ to feel, in order to want to kill everyone on the planet.”

“I’m aware, Myka. I know that she’s guilty, that she feels guilty. I know that. But that doesn’t mean that she won’t do it again.”

“That’s what she said, you know.”

“See, I told you-“

“But I think she’s wrong. I think, if she’s here and she has us and she has her therapist then... eventually she’ll get to the point where she isn’t angry all the time. When there isn’t some part of her that thinks that world would be better without people in it.”

Artie sighed. “I know what you think. You know what I think. So I’m going to wait until something happens. Maybe she’ll do something. Maybe she won’t. But her therapist talks to the regents, and they’ll talk to me, and then – and only then – will I make a decision.”

Myka nodded. “Okay. Until then, I’ll be on strike.”

Artie started playing again as soon as she stood to leave. When she was almost outside, Myka was sure that she heard him saying something, something she didn’t quite hear above the music.

She would have been surprised to know that he’d said “Why, James? Why?”

~*~

Dawn was an idiot.

The first sign that she had of this was when, upon teleporting to Joshua’s lab at CalTech, she successfully noticed that it was a lot darker in there than it really should have been – and then, upon noticing that, failed to wonder why.

The second sign was when she locked the lab and was already halfway down the corridor before she realised that she hadn’t had to _unlock_ the lab, and the door had in fact been left slightly ajar.

The third sign was the length of time between her recognising the voice that called a greeting to her and realising that she had attributed the voice to the wrong person.

Because, although Angel and Angelus sounded the same, they were definitely not the same person.

She could tell that much from the way Angelus was smiling, and the way his hand was gripping her shoulder.


	10. Chapter Ten

Dawn had never really understood what it meant when people said they felt like a deer caught in the headlights. She’d thought that running away was always a possibility. Even whenever she’d encountered the Abomination, she’d never felt as though she was frozen in fear – admittedly, she _did_ stay as still as possible, but that was a conscious action. It was difficult.

But now, with Angelus’ hand on her shoulder, all she could think about was that _this_ had to be exactly how a deer would feel, caught in the headlights of a speeding car. She couldn’t speak – couldn’t even think of anything to say, not even her standard implausible lies. 

Angelus let go, stepped away, the very picture of not-a-psychopath. “Are you okay?”

Dawn, after several agonizing seconds, managed to nod. She opened her mouth and made a noise which might have been an affirmative grunt or might have been a terrified gulp.

Angelus rubbed his hand through his hair. “Sorry if I startled you, only Buffy sent me to get you, and she said that you sometimes hang around here. There’s something going on with Kendra, apparently. But, hey… what’s that machine?”

Dawn cleared her throat. “Uh… what’s wrong with Kendra.”

Angelus shrugged. “Oh, you know. Slayer stuff. She didn’t seem to want to tell me – she didn’t seem all that pleased to see me. Which is fair, given that I’m supposed to be guarding the pieces of the Judge. But I just had to see her, you know? Because I love her.”

Dawn nodded, as though she accepted that, and wondered if she would have if she hadn’t known that he’d reverted to being a soulless killing machine. She was ashamed to admit that she probably would have, even though Angelus was wildly overacting his role as Angel. “Right. Well, I’d better go see her then. My car’s just over there…”

She turned and walked away, hoping against all the evidence that he wouldn’t try and stop her, that if she didn’t run he wouldn’t chase. It was the only idea she had – get as far away from him as possible.

Even though she’d expected Angelus to catch up with her, Dawn still jumped in fright when he reappeared right beside her, effortlessly keeping pace with her without making a sound. “What’s wrong, Dawn? Why’re you running?”

Dawn pointedly looked down at her feet, grateful that her long hair obscured her face. Although, of course, she was fairly sure that Angelus could hear her terrified heartbeat. “I’m not running.”

Angelus sighed, took hold of her arm, and stopped walking. Although the grip didn’t seem all that tight, Dawn couldn’t break out of it, couldn’t keep moving. So she stopped moving, and tried really, really hard not to start hyperventilating. “So, you figured it out then.” Angelus said blandly.

“Uh… figured what out?”

Angelus’ grip tightened, just enough to the point where it got painful. “Don’t play games with me. You _know_ who I am. Now, I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them. If you don’t…” He grinned. “So. That machine. What is it?”

“It’s a time machine.” Dawn said suddenly. It was the only lie that she could come up with that seemed like it might be even slightly plausible. She knew she _had_ to lie – there was no way that she was going to let Angelus have access to a teleporter.

“You’re kidding.”

Dawn shrugged, or at least moved one shoulder in an approximation of one – his grip on her other arm was too tight for her to move it. “Why should I lie? There’s no way to prove it, and you can’t use it – it’ll tear apart a vampire in a few seconds.”

Angelus leaned close, until his face was a few inches from hers. Dawn tried to move away, but she quickly came up against a door, its handle sticking into her back. His hold on her was just too tight for her to move any further, and he just followed her. “I know you’re lying. I can hear your heartbeat.”

Dawn swallowed noisily. She was fairly sure that she was going to die. She was hours away from Buffy, no one at Warehouse knew where she was, and no one even knew she was in danger. The best that she could do was delay it and hope for a miracle. “Well. I guess that’s that, then. I mean, I could say that the fact that I know that you’re Angelus is proof enough that I’m from future, given that at this point in time no one _should_ know that, but if you’re so sure that I’m lying then-“

“Who wants you dead?” Angelus interrupted.

For a second, Dawn was about to ask what on Earth he was talking about, but then she realised that if she was supposed to be from the future then she couldn’t afford to look like she didn’t know something. “Lots of people. You, for one.” She hoped that the few seconds that had lapsed between his question and her answer weren’t enough for him to realise that she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

No such luck. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” Angelus chuckled, and let her go. Dawn rubbed her arm and wondered if she should make a break for it, before she glanced at Angelus and saw that he was hoping that she’d do just that. “I met a man, a little while after I had sex with your sister. He wanted me to kill you. Didn’t say why – of course, that might have been because I ripped his throat out, but I was hungry and I hadn’t eaten a human in decades. I figured he just wanted your sister distracted from something, but now I’m thinking maybe it wasn’t her that he was interested in. maybe he just wanted _you_ dead. So, I’ll ask you again. That machine. What is it?”

Dawn didn’t answer. There was nothing that she could say.

“You’re not making this easy for me, are you? You know, I wasn’t going to kill you.” Angelus paused for a moment. “Probably. I’ve never liked people telling me who to kill, and now that I’m back I’m going to kill who _I_ want. I was just going hurt you. Make you into a message, so I can make a point to Buffy. But if you’re going to be irritating, then I _will_ kill you.”

“No.” Dawn said, slowly. “You won’t. You can’t. 

Angelus looked at her, amused. “No? Why’s that, then?”

“Because I can’t die. I might look human, but I’m not. Because I’m actually a ball of energy. And I know something you don’t know.” 

In a sudden burst of movement, Dawn reached behind her and yanked open the door behind her. 

Sunlight came streaming in, and Angelus’ arm flew up to cover his face as his skin began to sizzle. With his other arm he automatically tried to grab Dawn, but she was already out of his reach, having moved further into the sunlit room. She would have liked to say some kind of witty one liner, something like “Dawn’s here!”, but she actually felt like she was going to be sick and she just wanted to get as far away from Angelus as possible. She scrabbled frantically at the window, trying to figure out how to open it, before giving up and grabbing a chair and hurling it at the window. She watched as it smashed, felt immensely thankful that this wing was abandoned. She climbed out and raced to her car, which she started before she’d even closed the door.

Sometime later, when she was out of LA and she felt like she wasn’t going to vomit and/or faint, Dawn realised that she should definitely follow up on Claudia’s suggestion for a teleport trap. She didn’t know if Angelus would be able to figure out how to use it – or even if he could in the first place, given that he was a vampire – but he definitely knew where it was and that it was _something_.

Dawn also needed to figure out how she was going to get back to South Dakota – there was no way that she was going to teleport back, at least not with that one, and building another one in Sunnydale would almost certainly be a terrible idea. Plus, she couldn’t exactly tell anyone at the Warehouse that the teleporter in LA was off limits because a vampire was lurking around it…

~*~

Dawn wasn’t really surprised when Buffy opened the door when she knocked on it. She’d been expecting her to be there – she highly doubted that her younger sister was feeling up to seeing anyone. “You’re back.” Buffy said, surprised. 

“Uh huh. Listen – I need to talk to you.” 

Buffy moved inside. “Sure, sure, come in.”

Dawn followed her. “I need to tell you something. Something about Angelus.”

Buffy paused for a second, but didn’t say anything. After that second, she just kept walking as though nothing had happened. Dawn, who felt like she should apologise for something but wasn’t quite sure what, assumed that that meant that it was okay for her to talk. “I, uh, kind of met him. In LA.”

Buffy whirled around. “What? Are you – did he…? What? Is everything-“

“I’m okay. He didn’t hurt me, I managed to get away.” Dawn said hurriedly, feeling as though she should probably have led with that. “But he said something. He said that after he, uh, lost his soul again, that he met someone. Someone who told him to kill me.”

“What?” Buffy said again. “Someone – who would want to kill you? Is this some kind of NSA thing?”

Dawn shook her head – as far as she knew, the only people who might want her dead for her affiliation with the Warehouse were either dead, Bronzed, or undergoing therapy. “Doubt it. I’m an analyst – we’re not known for making enemies. Certainly not the sort that have connections with murderous psychopath vampires. I think it’s about you. Well, Angelus said that he thought it was about you, and I think he’s probably right. I mean, if he killed me, then you’d be so… you know, uh, _focused_ on that that… whoever this guy was could do what he liked. And I thought… Angelus had to have heard that you were dead from someone, right?”

Buffy visibly sagged. “Great. That’s all I need. A conspiracy to do something evil. Not like Sunnydale _ever_ gets those.”

Dawn figured that it probably wouldn’t cheer Buffy up if she told her that Angelus had killed this particular member of the conspiracy, and that there was a chance, however slim, that the conspiracy died with him. “Well, at least you know that it exists, right.”

“Uh huh. I’m sure Kendra will be thrilled.”

Dawn tilted her head, and was about to say that she’d thought that the Council had arranged for Kendra to leave again, but thought better of it.

Apparently, Buffy understood what Dawn wasn’t saying anyway. “Yeah, Giles dropped by to say that she was sticking around.” Buffy smiled slightly. “Mom slapped him.”

“ _Really_?”

“Yep, just opened the door and whacked him. It was amazing.”

“I can’t believe I missed that.”

“Well, you know, if you were…” Buffy trailed off uncomfortably.

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

Dawn cleared her throat. “Right. Well. Um. I mean, I was going to come down anyway, even before the whole Angelus thing. I needed to ask Anya some things.” Admittedly, Dawn wasn’t all that certain what those things _were_ \- she had a vague idea of what she wanted to say, but she’d kind of dashed off before she had a chance to fully formulate her thoughts and Angelus had managed to scramble them even further. “You know. Alternate universe stuff.”

“I see.” Buffy shrugged awkwardly. “Well, uh, we kind of let her go. You know, she’s human, and she didn’t seem to know anything, and she _did_ have a math test. I mean, I can find her and get her to-“

“It’s okay.” Dawn said. “I’m in no hurry.”

She’d been thinking about the fact that she wasn’t even sure how she could leave at all – it wasn’t until Buffy beamed at her that she realised that it sounded like she wanted to stay.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Claudia hated spiders. As far as she was concerned, people who _didn’t_ hate spiders were almost certainly insane, or at least under the control of some kind of artefact. They were horrible, scuttling things with more eyes and legs than even a small scuttling thing should have. She hated them, and she hated their webs which seemed to spring up out of nowhere and _always_ got stuck in her hair. While Claudia really wanted to be an agent, if it hadn’t been for Myka being on strike and Pete putting his foot down, she would have sat out this mission. Sure, she wanted to make herself seem like some kind of amazing super artefact hunter in front of Jinks, but she was sure she could do that from the comfort of the B &B, where Leena could deal with arachnids (preferably with a flamethrower). Admittedly, she wasn’t sure how she could do that, but she was sure she could.

She _especially_ hated this spider. She hadn’t actually seen it yet, but she was absolutely certain that she was going to. For one thing, its web was enormous. The strands were as thick as her arm. For another, no one in the small Kansas town they were in had even _seen_ the spider, which Claudia strongly suspected meant that it was invisible. Scuttling creatures were bad enough, but when they were enormous and invisible Claudia thought that the best thing to do would be to nuke the town from orbit.

She maintained enough presence of mind, however, to reach out and stop Pete before he could touch the web. “You know webs are sticky, right? You don’t have to touch everything you see.”

“Sure.” Pete replied hurriedly, shooting a glance at Jinks. “I was... just testing the new guy. Seeing if he’d stop me.”

Jinks smiled. “Hey, you want to touch a giant spider web, go ahead. Who am I to stand in the way of a man and his Shelob?”

“That’s a good point.” Pete said. “I know Artie said that the artefact was probably related to ‘Charlotte’s Web’ in some way, but it _could_ be ‘Lord of the Rings’. We should see if there’s a video store around here somewhere.”

Claudia snorted. “A video store? How old are you?”

“About five, according to Myka.” Pete said proudly. “’sides, this is small town Kansas. Not exactly known for being a technical hub.” He gestured down the street. “Come on, gang. We’ve got a mystery to solve.”

Jinks fell into step next to Claudia. “Why do I get the impression that he just wants to go and look at movies?”

“Well, he _might_... but this wouldn’t exactly be the first time we’ve seen something bring old movies to life.”

Jinks laughed, before catching Claudia’s expression. “Oh. You were serious?”

“You’ll get used to it.”

Jinks rubbed a hand over his shaved head and nodded distractedly. Claudia wondered if she’d lied. She wondered if she was used to it, and if she’d be able to tell if she was.

Whatever conclusion she might have come to was interrupted by Pete letting out a loud whoop in front of them. “Solved it!”

Claudia grimaced involuntarily. Maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t end with them being eaten by a giant spider?

She brightened as she looked at what Pete had found. It was a small comic book store, barely visible between the two buildings on either side. Its window was dusty and Claudia was reasonably sure that there wasn’t a lot of footfall here, but there _was_ a large cardboard cut-out of Spiderman.

Maybe there’d just be a superhero in spandex instead of a spider.

~*~

“Hey, Buff? You there?” Dawn called. Admittedly, it wasn’t much of a call – it was barely above her ordinary speaking level, which wasn’t particularly loud to begin with – but it was about all she could manage right now.

Fortunately, her sister heard, and appeared moments later with an oversized tub of ice cream under one arm. “What’s up?”

“Can you get me a pen and paper?”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed. Dawn was lying sprawled on the sofa – she hadn’t even bothered to take her shoes off. Buffy, meanwhile, was settled comfortably in her pyjamas, and wasn’t planning on doing anything more strenuous than eating ice cream for the foreseeable future. Okay, so _technically_ getting a pen wasn’t more strenuous than that, but the point still stood. There was no reason why she couldn’t get a pen or paper herself. “Why can’t you do it?”

Dawn waved a hand at her languidly. “Just, you know... do it. Please?”

Buffy rolled her eyes, moved all of three feet, and picked up a notepad and a pen that was lying on a nearby table. She was fairly sure they were Willow’s, but she didn’t think she’d mind. The other girl had enough notepads as it was. “Here you go.”

Dawn took them without a word. Buffy watched her for a moment and thought about leaving – she could practically hear her bed calling her name – but instead she sat in armchair and watched Dawn. She had her ice cream, so she was good anywhere.

Buffy knew Dawn’s writing. Back in LA, she’d gotten her older sister to do her homework once or twice or a few dozen times. She knew that she wrote fast, that her handwriting was cramped, and that it was barely legible unless she made an effort.

She supposed that Dawn had to be making an effort now, because the writing was almost glacially slow. Buffy wondered what she could be writing – she doubted it was for her or Joyce, because they were both around and besides, Dawn didn’t look like she was going to be moving anytime soon. Just as Buffy was about to ask, however, Dawn handed the paper over to her.

Buffy hadn’t really expected anything, but if she had, she wouldn’t have expected a shopping list. Admittedly, she didn’t know what half the things on the list were, but she knew a list when she saw one. “What’s this?”

“Things.” Dawn said blandly, without looking up. “Things I need.”

“I don’t even know what most of this stuff _is_ , Dawnie. Why can’t you-“

“Because it wouldn’t be a good idea. Something will go wrong. I just know that if I go, I’ll mess something up. I do that.”

Buffy opened her mouth. Shut it again. After a few moments, she said “This is one of those things, isn’t it? This is that thing that you told me about.”

“I doubt it.” Dawn replied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if I said it, I doubt I was right.”

“This is your, uh, bipolar-ness, right? The dep- the downswing?”

Dawn did something which _might_ have been a shrug, or might just have been a deep breath. She seemed to be moving as little as possible, and Buffy wasn’t really sure what it was supposed to be. “Been coming on for the last couple days. Could _feel_ the energy leaching out, lying in a puddle on the floor. I thought I could... but of course not. Since when do I do things right?”

Buffy looked at the list again. “These things... they’ll help you?”

“No.” Dawn said. “I don’t get helped. Help and I are unmixy things. What I get is something that looks like help, right up until it turns out that really it’s not. What I get is betrayed, because I am an abomination and that’s exactly-”

“Stop it. Just... stop.”

Dawn subsided. “Just get the things.”

Buffy looked at the note, and decided that there wasn’t really much likelihood of that. Oh, sure, she felt bad for Dawn, but she was _not_ going to be leaving her house anytime soon. Especially not to try and find some stuff that she had no idea how to find. She was sure that Willow and Xander would come by after school to see how she was, and she could get them to sort it out. She imagined that Willow, at least, would probably know what these things were and where to get them. 

She didn’t tell Dawn that, of course. She just mumbled something which sounded vaguely affirmative, and then went and curled up in bed with her ice cream. She thought about listening to some country music, but she thought that would be too much effort. Better to do nothing at all.

Her thoughts, interestingly enough, were quite closely matched by her sister downstairs. There were some differences, of course – Dawn listened out for Buffy, so that she’d know when she left. When it became clear that she wasn’t going to, Dawn smiled to herself. Or more accurately, she twisted her lips into the form a smile. She didn’t get helped.

~*~

As it turned out, the comic book store was a dead end. While the owner had recently acquired a fair few rare runs of early Spiderman comics, he hadn’t sold any yet. The owner had also waxed eloquently about the size and tensile strength of Spiderman’s webs in relation to the giant web they’d found. Claudia was reasonably sure that she was the only person who had followed that. The fact that Pete swung to face her as soon as the store owner stopped speaking was the clue that tipped her off. “Oh, basically he’s saying Spiderman is too small to make a web like that. Unless he has heavy duty equipment, which isn’t really something likely, given the situation at hand.”

“Right.” Pete sagged slightly. Claudia understood the feeling. Dealing with Spiderman was definitely better than a giant spider. Especially a giant spider that no one had actually seen. “Well, anyway, I think we should look around here for a bit. For research.”

Jinks looked at her. Claudia just shrugged. Pete had been clear – this was his mission.

~*~

Sure enough, Willow and Xander came by after school. Buffy took the trouble to get dressed for the occasion, if putting on a tracksuit could be considered as such. Dawn, however, hadn’t moved. When Buffy came in to check how she was, she found her sister lying in exactly the same position as she had been hours earlier. Though her eyes were open, they didn’t move to look at Buffy when she came in. if it wasn’t for the fact that Buffy could see her breathing, she might have thought that she was dead. She opened her mouth to say something, promptly realised that she had no idea what she should say, and went to open the door.

Xander was all smiles and charm and humour. It wasn’t quite that he was pretending as though nothing had happened – it was more like he was just glossing over it. Buffy appreciated that, because if someone asked her how she felt right then, she would be forced to start thinking about things, and that way badness lay. Fortunately, his exuberance was such that he stopped Willow from asking. Buffy could see that she wanted to, and Buffy was grateful for the concern, but she didn’t need concern. What she needed was for Giles and Jenny not to have betrayed her, her sister not to be catatonic on the couch, and for her boyfriend not to be a murderous psychopath. Failing that, she needed to be able to pretend, at least for a little while, that everything was okay.

Still, she couldn’t gloss over the situation forever. Xander could only be so witty, and she could only wallow for so long. Eventually she would have to leave her house and actively deal with things.

But not right then. So, in a lull in conversation, she pulled out Dawn’s list and passed it over to Willow. If she talked about that, she didn’t have to talk about anything else. “Hey, Will? My sister gave me that, said she needed them. Thing is, I don’t really know what they are...”

Willow scanned the list, pausing occasionally as she tried to decipher a particularly illegible word. “Well, most of it looks like equipment for... something. Some kind of machine. I literally have no idea what _kind_ of machine, most of these things look like they cancel each other out or do nothing at all...” Willow looked at Buffy, and did _not_ say that, if Dawn had given this to her, there was every chance that it was the result of someone not thinking entirely clearly.

Buffy just shrugged. “She’s... not doing that well. If you can just-“

“Sure, sure.” Willow interrupted hurriedly. “That’s fine. Except, uh, the thing is... some of the other stuff. I _do_ know what that does. And if I bought it and this wasn’t Sunnydale, land of the infinite barbecue fork accidents, I’d probably end up on a watch list. Because, um, they’re kind of... well, they’re kind of explosive.”

Buffy looked at her. “Explosive.”

 

“Yeah.”

“As in explosives?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Hold on a second, will you.” Buffy got up and went to see Dawn. “Hey, uh, Dawn? You planning on blowing something up?”

The answer was slow in coming, and Dawn’s voice seemed somewhat slurred. “Thought about it, yeah.”

Buffy closed her eyes and hoped that the answer wasn’t going to be what she thought it was going to be. “What exactly are you planning to blow up?”

“With that? Kind of hoping for Angelus. Failing that, the place where he found me. Can’t find me if the place he knows I go doesn’t exist.” Dawn paused. “In the interests of full disclosure, have to say I also thought about blowing me up. Realise that’s not a good plan though.”

Buffy sat down. “And blowing up Angel, uh, Angelus is?”

“Well... yeah. I mean, he’s been around a few days and he’s already tried to kill me once.” Dawn would have liked to have said that if anyone was going to kill her, it was either going to be the Abomination or herself, but she realised that wasn’t exactly a healthy thought. Stirling would be pleased. “He knows where I work. Trust me, if he sticks around there...”

“And your bosses would be cool with that?” Buffy said incredulously. She couldn’t imagine the NSA would allow someone to blow up one of their offices.

“No one there but me.” Dawn’s lips curved. “No one there.”

That didn’t seem right. The entire plan didn’t seem right, not least because it seemed like it involved blowing up her kind-of-boyfriend. She doubted that she’d accept the plan even if Dawn was in a better frame of mind.

On the other hand, she was aware that Dawn had managed to steal the world’s sharpest sword. She didn’t know what else the NSA had – if she was honest, she only had the haziest of ideas as to what the NSA even _did_ \- but if Angelus got his hands on something like that then everyone in Sunnydale would be in trouble.

“You aren’t going to do it, are you?” Dawn said. “You won’t help.”

Buffy drew in a deep breath, then let it out explosively. “No. I don’t think I can.”

Dawn didn’t reply. She wasn’t surprised. She didn’t get helped.

Buffy stayed where she was for a few moments more, but then realised that she had nothing more to say and Dawn wasn’t going to say anything else. Dawn didn’t move.

She didn’t move a few minutes later, either, when she heard her Farnsworth go off. There was no point. Nothing she tried to do worked out.


End file.
